Paradoxical
by ensou
Summary: Wherever she ends up, Taylor Hebert always seems to throw a wrench in things. Why would being resurrected and wielding the Light be any different? Or: in which Taylor ends up becoming the Queen's left hand and the Vanguard has no idea how to handle it.
1. Prologue

Taylor as a Guardian has been done before. But it's mostly been in the Worm universe, and doesn't really get to _explore_ the Destiny elements. Over two years ago I posted in an ideas thread for a Destiny/Worm fic, and that's been percolating in my mind ever since.

The Taken Queen [on SB & FFN] is probably one of the best Destiny fics out there, but it's extremely niche. You have to know a lot of the background lore and do a lot of Grimoire diving to really grasp just how _deep_ it is.

This is my take.

 **Paradoxical**

* * *

 _"I remember everything about the day I was born. I still bear the scars._

" _ **The Awoken**_ _are my family now._ "

* * *

 _October, 2631_

If only he'd paid more attention the first time he saw her. Noticed her. But he hadn't, he'd been too focused on the sudden appearance of the Vandals on either side of the unprotected Awoken woman (their _Queen_ , apparently) armed with spears that crackled with Arc lightning.

It wasn't until later, in the cockpit of the beaten Arcadia-class jumpship (he _really_ needed to get something better now that he had enough glimmer) that his Ghost turned to him and asked, "Did you notice the woman standing on the side of the room?"

He frowned, glancing at the small, white floating star-shape. "What woman?"

"On the side of the room, when we were meeting the Queen," the Ghost responded. He —the Ghost had made it _quite_ clear that he was male, with 'how easy it is to change voices, I mean _really_ '— turned to look at his Guardian. "I would never have noticed her if I hadn't decided to go over the memory again for a better look at those Fallen. I think they were once a part of the House of Wolves. That was their colors they were wearing."

"Play it back for me?"

The Ghost's optic blinked on, a small blue hologram projecting onto the instrumentation of the jumpship. The view jumped around, largely focused on the Guardian's own in-video self, but there was a moment where it moved over to the wall of the room and then back, and he thought he saw something on one of the platforms at the edge.

"Did you see it?" the Ghost asked.

"Can you stop it at the right moment?"

"Can I—" his Ghost turned and gave him a flat look, the hologram winking away. "I don't think I need to dignify that with a response."

How the little things managed to be so expressive with only the effective equivalent of a single eyebrow he'd never know, but they made it work to scary degrees.

The Ghost turned away, and the blue-tinted hologram reappeared. It went through the same motions as before, except this time it paused on the wall, and now he could see the already-dark figure shrouded in shade.

Long, dark curly hair, and a lightweight armor of muted dark grays and black panels. She stood there uncaring, her back against wall, nothing covering her face other than loose fabric around her neck, but still so shadowed it was impossible to make out distinct features or even her skin color.

He would have sworn she was a Hunter, hand cannon strapped to her thigh and all, if not for the _singular fact_ that _no_ self-respecting Hunter would be caught _dead_ without their cloak, or even just a hood.

The other two things that stood out were the symbols onto her chest and shoulder plates. The Queen's crown, in grey and darker grey rather than its normal purple and gold, was on the upper left of her chest plate, and a… beetle? of some sort, was on her shoulder.

"Strange. I wonder what she was there for…" the Ghost mused.

Did it matter? It looked like she belonged there, at the least.

Later, he really wished he'd given it more thought, but at the time, his focus was rather absorbed by the fact that he now had to go find a _Gate Lord_. Normal Vex Minotaurs were problems enough on their own, twelve feet of angry metal death-robots and all, but scaled up by three or four times?

He was not looking forward to this mission, even if it _was_ necessary.


	2. Weaver

Zachary glanced over at the woman who walked at his side, still struggling to come to terms it.

" _Mars. Eighty-four North, thirty-two East. Meridian Bay,_ " _Uldren had grit out._

" _Our Weaver shall join you,_ " _the Queen spoke, looking down at him._ " _To protect our investment._ "

 _The tall dark-haired woman at the side of room moved, standing up straight, and then stepped forward into the light, and he barely managed to contain his surprise._

She was human.

Not Awoken. _Human_. In the _Reef_.

No brightly-colored glowing eyes or odd shifting patterns of light or blue-to-purple skin tone.

Human. Caucasian. Dark green eyes and near-black hair. Tall, only an inch shorter than himself and he was fairly tall.

And yet she'd still turned and bowed her head to the white-haired woman standing regally on the raised dais before them, seeming to pass between the two momentarily, between green and pale blue-glowing irides, before it was gone. " _By your leave, my Lady._ "

A human in the Reef who followed the Queen.

He'd never heard of someone like that.

"He's worried."

Zachary almost stumbled at her words. He hadn't expected her to even try to talk. "What?"

The woman looked at him. "The Prince. He is worried what you might mean for the Reef. What antagonizing the Vex might bring. An end to a period of precarious stability and peace."

The strange Exo's words came to him. " _A side should always be taken, Little Light. Even if it's the wrong side._ "

"Why is a human in the Reef?" he found himself asking.

She looked at him, one eyebrow raised, and he couldn't help but be reminded of the Queen's own imperious looks only minutes ago.

"Because I never left," she answered cryptically.

That was _such_ a Warlock answer. Answers that told you everything and nothing all at once.

…He was definitely going to need Rigel's help decoding that one.

"We're going into an active war zone," he noted. _Are you ready for that?_

She just nodded, and then glanced at him as they arrived at the jumpship hangers. "Oh, don't worry about me. I've killed many, many Cabal before."

Oh. Good. At least one of them had, then.

He'd never even been to Mars.

"Don't worry! We can do this!" a feminine voice stated confidently.

Zachary blinked. _A Ghost_.

A _Ghost_ had suddenly appeared from behind the fabric wrapped around Weaver's neck, floating out and around her head. And yet she was like no Ghost he'd ever seen, all black metal and sharp shifting edges.

"You're a Guardian!"

The woman gave him a Look. "Risen," she corrected.

 _What?_

Zachary's Ghost made a sound like he was clearing his throat (really, why did he do things like that?) and spoke up. "Ah. 'Risen' is what Guardians were called before the Vanguard," he explained helpfully.

The Look turned to the Ghost. "Aaand you're not part of the Vanguard. …Right."

"It's been a while since I've seen another Ghost!" Weaver's Ghost said, drifting forward and then around Zachary's. "You're rather… plain, though," she noted, looking over the blank white shell.

Zachary's Ghost drifted back towards him, and he got the distinct impression it would be blushing. "W-well, you know! We've been so busy! What with the Fallen. And the Hive. And the Vex. And…" he blinked, turning to Zachary. "You _do_ get into a lot of trouble, Guardian."

"Kali…" the woman warned, and the black Ghost floated back towards her.

"Sorry, Sorry," the Ghost apologized.

"…So who's ready to go fight some Cabal?"


	3. Cabal

The Cabal were _ugly_. Seven feet tall, eight hundred pounds, and without their pressurized helmets they somehow reminded Zachary distinctly of rhinoceroses, despite not having a horn. They simply… did. The way they lumbered, their size and bulk, the tough leathery skin, the way they just _soaked up_ bullets…

Having two people to fight them made things go _much_ easier than his last mission. Fireteams did that. Rigel and Halley-7 would probably chew him out the next time he was in the Tower, but they hadn't been available for the past week, off doing something in the European Dead Zone.

Their loss.

So far, they'd gotten a link to their sparrows, found another Cabal base, killed a commander (and a few other squads), taken his terminal access key, and Zachary's Ghost was now diving into the Cabal systems to try and find out more about the giant Vex gate that was the way into the Black Garden.

"I doubt they know what it is, even if they've managed to get inside the Vex networks," Weaver said, standing off to the side where she and Kali watched his Ghost work.

He looked over at her in curiosity. "Why?"

"Because they only care about things that let them expand quickly. The Cabal aren't very patient or invested in research. They're a heavily industrialized warring species," she said. "Blow up planets for getting in their way, remember?"

"How do you know so much about them?"

She turned away and looked out at the giant ring Gate and the red, rocky expanse before them. "This was where Kali found me."

… _Oh._

"I spent weeks fighting them while trying to find a workable ship to get away," she said, looking back at him.

"Well, you're right about them getting into the Vex networks," Zachary's Ghost said. "And that they have no idea what the Gate really is. But I did find out a way to wake that Gate Lord's eye again. All we need to do is charge it with a Vex spire connected to the Gate. Luckily, there's one pretty close by. Unfortunately, it's in the middle of a Cabal warbase."

Of _course_ it was.

* * *

Zachary watched as Weaver reloaded her pulse rifle and chambered it, standing over the corpse of Primus Sha'aul, staring at it for a moment. And then she just turned and started walking towards him, clicking the safety on before putting the rifle over her shoulder onto her back. He could have sworn he'd seen it somewhere before, but couldn't think of where…

It had been a major trek through the Cabal defensive lines to the warbase, even if they made good time. They'd only just gotten to the spire when the Primus of the area showed up, apparently unwilling to let any more of his troops be killed.

A few fifty-caliber rounds to the head, some light suppressing fire from Weaver, and a single trusty RPG ended that fairly quickly.

"And it looks like we have a working eye!" Kali said, floating around at where the spherical object was embedded in the short Vex column, glowing red once more. "Oh, this is so exciting!"

"Speak for yourself," Zachary's own Ghost retorted. "I swear it's just one thing after another with you, Guardian," he said, looking at Zachary.

"Sorry," he returned, unrepentant. Not _his_ fault the Vanguard kept making him follow up on the things he found. First the Fallen when he was resurrected to get that ship, then the Hive after that Wizard in the Cosmodrome, then the Vex when they followed that Exo's coordinates, and then the Cabal to be able to deal with the Vex following the Exo's information…

Dominoes. So many dominoes, lined up to fall.

Now, though, at least, they had a chance to breathe. Everything had been prepared, eye charged and ready, and they weren't on any _immediate_ time constraint, though the sooner the better, likely. Still, he was a bit tired from today. Not physically, thanks to the Light, but the amount of mental focus and awareness required from fighting was exhausting in its own way.

Better to face the Garden well-rested and prepared. And maybe wait until Rigel and Halley could join them. He had a feeling that a larger fireteam would be very useful for this sort of thing if they could.

"We should rest," Zachary suggested. "Prepare. So that we can be ready for anything."

Weaver nodded agreeably.

He still wasn't sure if she was a Hunter or a Warlock. She moved like the former, but used abilities like the latter. He'd seen her Drain a Cabal and shock a whole squad into static with chain-lightning, but also dissolve into smoke as she dodged.

And her Light…

He'd used a set of Fist of Havoc against a small platoon, pulses of Arc energy left behind that she'd eyed curiously, drawing in the sparks of Light that were all that remained of the Cabal afterwards, and then only minutes later displayed her own trump card.

It was Solar, he knew that much. But it wasn't a form of Radiance (that he could tell) or the Hunters' Golden Guns. A veritable swarm of small embers had surrounded her, wrapping her like a blanket before flying off and attaching themselves to numerous Cabal, detonating moments later and rendering them all into nothing more than ash.

He'd almost laughed when he realized what they reminded him of.

Fireflies, like the ones that appeared at the Tower.

 _Fire. Flies._

One on its own might be only an inconvenience, but he wasn't afraid to admit that the number she'd called and used was… intimidating.

Still, he had other things to worry about now than how she used her Light.

"I'll be heading back to the City…"

"I'm to stay with you until the Heart is destroyed," she said bluntly. "I can't do that half-way across the solar system."

Fair enough.

"Alright…" he allowed. "Ghost?"

"Already on the way," the automaton told him, and sure enough Zachary could see his jumpship breaking through the cloud cover. "Let's go home."

* * *

The first warning that something was wrong was when the moment they dropped out of slipspace just outside of Earth's gravity well and he was immediately hailed over the comms.

"Guardian! Guardian!?"

"Kali?" his Ghost returned. "What's wrong?"

"I-I don't know!" the other Ghost responded, her voice taut, frayed. "It's Weaver! She was fine and then she just… just stopped! I can't get any response out of her! She's not moving or anything!"

This… could be bad.

"The City. It's the closest place we can get the help," Zachary said, thinking aloud.

"O-okay. Okay," she agreed.

"Follow our trajectory," Zachary's Ghost said.

"Tower, this is Guardian Zeta-Four-Nine-Alpha requesting immediate emergency medical attention for escorted Reef ship," Zachary called.

"Roger that. EMS notified and standing by," returned Amanda Holliday. "It's nice to hear your voice again. And did you say _Reef_?"

"Affirmative," the Guardian's Ghost answered for him.

"Well I'll be darned. Anyways, we're ready for you when you get here," she responded.

"Thirty seconds out."

"Copy that."

It was one of the longer thirty seconds he'd ever experienced, mostly because there was nothing he could do but _sit_ there, the ship's autopilot handling the approach and landing for him. And he was quite sure the Queen wouldn't be happy if "her" Weaver somehow (truly) died when she was with him.

He did not want to accidentally start any wars. There was more than enough fighting already.

They came in hot, skipping the standard holding/landing pattern to buzz the Tower hangar and just materialize, Weaver appearing less than a second after on the stretcher manned by a pair of medical Warlocks only a meter away. They wasted no time in whisking her towards the medical facilities, and Zachary followed behind, feeling at least somewhat responsible.

She was pale, unmoving and absolutely still, and he could only barely see her breathing. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, open and glazed over. Looking at her for more than a few seconds felt unnatural, like seeing something that was just _wrong_.

…What had happened to her?

And what could have possibly caused it?


	4. Passenger

She remembered.

The golden man.

" _I know you want to help, but it's too dangerous. You're too strong, and this situation is fragile. It'll do more harm than good._ "

The reason.

" _We all have our parts to play._ "

" _Parts._ "

" _Yes. Like actors taking a role in a play. We wear our human faces and harbor our dramas and fantasies, but it's the same individuals playing the parts, as the play starts anew on a different stage, with different faces and forms. If it all goes well, a figure from the crowd joins the stage for the plays that follow, and the roles are refined._ "

She remembered things she couldn't possibly know.

 _The fragments radiate outwards, shedding and dropping their protective shells as they sail into the black, empty void._

 _They are children. Offspring. They travel the void, hoping to encounter another habitable world._

 _This is the beginning._

Things lost.

 _I saw faces in the crowd. Young women riding a monster, blocking my path. More than any of the others, they were strangers in the manner I'd identified the rest of the crowd before. People I had some connection to, all the more strange because of the lack of recognition._

 _People kept getting in my_ fucking _way._

Things gained; a duality through sacrifice.

'A force of nature. Impossible to control or prevent.' _The words crossed my mind, and they were my words, but they weren't my thoughts._

'Reminding me of the bad old days, Passenger?' _I thought to myself. My bugs continued to gather around me. A familiar and comfortable presence, considering everything that was happening._

'I'm not giving up!' _My voice, sounding so far away, even in my own head, so young._

'Damn straight.'

The blurring.

" _I don't-_ " _I started. What had I been saying?_

 _Not me. The passenger. I had to relax. Allow myself to speak._

Death.

 _So many stars. The universe so vast._

'We're s- so very small, in the end.'

Aching loss and emptiness on one side. ' _Why did she have to go? Why did Mom have to die!?_ '

A pervasive sense of incompleteness on the other.

Surprise, excitement, now. ' _Come on Ems! We gotta go find more!_ '

She remembered now.

 _Hello, Passenger._

* * *

It was odd, remembering how… hobbled she'd been, there at the end. It was rather embarrassing, actually. Where before control of her body had felt fragmented, now it was just… detached.

She could already feel that _need_. There was none of the fuzziness that it had caused before, but she still knew that she'd do better with conflict, with _direction_.

Somehow, her body —her self— wasn't as affected by the brain surgery that Panacea had done. Was it because she was made of Light, now? Kali said it was so far beyond physics that it didn't even obey cause and effect, that it was what allowed Risen to react faster than thought, to not just bend but outright _break_ reality.

She felt her other-half following down that line, remembering the things she'd learned about Light, about Kali and what she was now. Her second death, at the hands of a Cabal Centurion, and how she'd outright _rejected_ it, bringing herself back into being through sheer force of will, blazing like the sun. The Cabal ship. The Broken Legion. The Reef. The Queen. The Awoken.

She felt interest, insatiable curiosity drawn from memories of when she was younger.

' _Alright, alright. But we need to fix me first._ '

It was her body. Her Light. The connection to her Passenger was regulated through that lobe in her brain. So she just needed to figure how to change that.

There was no way she was getting her bugs back. Not without Panacea, who was likely _long_ dead.

And wasn't _that_ a can of worms she didn't really want to open right now. _Six hundred years_.

Back on track. Pollentia. Out of control.

The thought of being Khepri again gave her chills/apprehension. …Even her passenger knew it wasn't a good idea. Not in this time, this _solar system_ that held creatures like the Hive and the Vex, the Jovians and the Harbingers, monsters like Crota who feasted on reality itself like it was the finest flesh. Unlike what she knew, the rules now were variable, liable to change at the will of the one you opposed.

The best thing she could think of to help her was the Techeun's augments. From what she understood about them their powers were largely mental and brain-based as well. Still, that didn't tell her how to go about limiting herself _now_.

…This was going to require _so_ much meditation, wasn't it?

* * *

Five hours after she arrived, Weaver's eyes fluttered.

Zachary's Ghost bumped him, quickly bringing him to awareness even as Kali rushed over to her Risen's prone form, the shifting jagged edges that made up her shell fluctuating faster than ever before.

"Weaver?"

The woman groaned, raising her right hand and massaging her forehead with the heel of her palm. "You really don't appreciate having two limbs until you've dealt with not having one."

"What?" Kali asked, and then shook herself. "No, wait, that's not important. What happened, Weaver? Are you okay?"

"Taylor."

"What?" Kali repeated.

"My name. It was— _is_ , Taylor. Weaver was just a codename," the dark-haired woman answered, slowly lifting herself up.

"You… you remember your past? Your first life? How?"

"I guess you could say I had a backup? Kinda? Um." She struggled for a moment. "Do you know what that one Kell called the Queen? 'An empty thing with—"

"'two dead souls', yes, I remember," Kali said. "It was meant as an insult."

"I… I guess you could say I found my second soul again." She laughed, the sound carrying a dark edge. "A dead thing with two empty souls."

Her Ghost shrunk. "Y-you don't really believe that, do you?" she asked, sounding hurt, and Weaver — _Taylor_ —, blinked, her eyes widening as she looked at Kali.

"Oh God, Kali. No. _No_." Taylor reached out and grabbed the black Ghost, hugging it to herself, and Zachary started to feel that he was intruding on something deeply personal.

He also wondered how the heck Taylor was managing to avoid stabbing herself, but that was another issue.

"I didn't mean it like— Ugh. You're my _Ghost_. My… my—" And Taylor uttered something guttural that rolled out of the back of her throat.

"That was Eliksni," Zachary's Ghost whispered to him. "It's complex, but roughly translates to something like a platonic soulmate, a 'life-sharer', literally 'one who will always come first that I am stronger with and weaker without'."

"So, you're okay now?" Zachary asked, drawing her attention to him.

Taylor grimaced. " _Kind_ of. Um. I've regained this background ability that's pretty scary that I don't have a lot of control over right now. I…" She sighed. "If someone gets within sixteen feet of me, their body becomes… mine. A puppet. And I can't stop it. It looks like it doesn't work on Risen, because of the Light, so until I have control of it, I'm going to have to stay away from normal people and immediately push them back out of my range."

That was… mildly terrifying, if he was being honest.

Still… "It's a good thing you're in the Tower, then, with all the Guardians," he noted, and she nodded.

"Yeah, this is probably the best place for me, right now," she said, shifting her legs off of the hospital bed and sitting up straight, Kali nestled in the wrap around her neck. "So what sort of stuff do you do around here for fun?"

He shrugged. He'd not actually spent a lot of time in the Tower itself, the past few weeks had been split between almost non-stop missions and resting at his apartment. "There's people you can talk to, like the gunsmith." She perked up at that. "…There's the Vanguard leaders," he said, thinking. "Oh! And there's Shaxx and the Crucible!" Taylor tilted her head in curiosity. "It's this live-fire arena where you fight against other Guardians. It's like a way to practice."

"That sounds interesting," Taylor admitted.

He nodded. "I… think the Warlocks have an archive-library? But I've never been there. There's restaurants, too."

At that very moment, Taylor's stomach gurgled, and she flushed. "Food sounds… good."

Zachary grinned. "Food it is, then."

* * *

 **A/N:** O hai ther QA.


	5. Sister

To my Queen, Mara Sov,

You will never read this, I know. But perhaps it may give me some form of insight into your decision.

I cannot ask anything but: Why?

I don't understand. What does this girl have that makes her so special as to receive your personal consideration? What makes her so deserving as to be offered (and accept!) a position in your Guard?

She is _human_! Not Awoken. Not even _Earthborn_. How can we know that she is telling the truth? How can we know that she will not run back to her masters in their pathetic Tower as soon her purpose is served?

The Fallen I understand. They are beaten, leashed by their own sensibilities. Strength is everything and you crushed them; they could do nothing but bow to their new Kell.

But _this_? My lady, she is Risen! They serve none but themselves, and yet rather than aid a swift departure, you offer her home? (Or perhaps you did, and she chose to stay? If so, perhaps I can begin to understand, but the question of why she would do so when given the alternative still remains.)

I have only heard stories, and even then the details become whispers. Of _Cabal_ , attacking this place, our _home_ , yet being defeated before the alarm was even sounded. The whispers, saying she came with them, and had some hand in it. But what could be so notable as to draw your attention?

My Queen, I wish to understand. She is to become my sister-in-arms, but I am no closer to understanding than before. Tomorrow training starts but how am I to work with her _truly_ if I do not?

Still, I shall trust your judgment, even if you

 _[Letter ends abruptly, paper wrinkled as though crumpled harshly]_


	6. Egress

Red dust blew in her face, and she was more grateful than ever for the tattered fabric she was using as a mask to breathe and goggles she'd found inside one of the abandoned buildings.

She was glad that she didn't need to eat or drink any more, even if it wasn't particularly comfortable and pleasant, because otherwise she would have died pretty early on.

According to Kali (her 'Ghost'), this was because the Risen were constructs of this 'Light' energy stuff and so she didn't need the fuel.

She was tired of the red. She just wanted off this stupid barren rock of a planet. Anything would be better than here.

"How much further?"

"A little over ten miles," her Ghost's voice echoed in her head.

She sighed and kept moving. They'd already traveled hundreds of miles, all to get to a command base. There'd been outposts, and she'd probably killed over a hundred 'Cabal' by now, but none of them had the level of data access Kali said she needed to search for a ship.

So command base it was.

It didn't matter how many Cabal were there guarding it, she'd go through them all if it meant getting off this rock.

After all, it wasn't like they could kill her.

* * *

She sat for a moment, enjoying the chance to rest, her back against the wall of the room they were in as Kali did some thing with her optic and beams of light that somehow meant she was hacking it. The Cabal access code they'd found on one of the corpses probably helped too.

She'd likely more than tripled her kill count by now. Between the Cabal and those weird robots Kali called 'the Vex' (but mostly the Cabal), she was getting quite a lot of practice at this whole "kill them before they kill you" thing.

…Though those stupid sniper Vex still kept getting her.

"Alright, I've got good news and bad news!" Kali said, turning to look at her. "What do you want first?"

"Bad news," she responded.

"There's no abandoned ships that are undamaged enough we could fly, much less jump planets. At least not that the Cabal have found. And they've done a _lot_ of surveying so as much as I hate to admit it they're _probably_ right."

Well, shit.

Ugh. She massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the headache she was starting to feel. "And the good news?"

The Ghost wavered, floating back and forth as though prevaricating. "A Cabal Centurion, a… Valus Trau'ug recently requested to launch an attack on the Reef, and was turned down. The encrypted messages continued after that within his detachment, arguing for it and getting more heated. It… sounds like he plans to mutiny and go there anyways."

"So…?"

"Soooo, how do you feel about hitching a ride on a Cabal warship?"

* * *

It was decidedly not comfortable. Infiltrating the ship had been a serious undertaking, and there were so many Cabal that she wasn't even sure she could realistically take them all on herself before they overwhelmed her and destroyed Kali.

She was currently hiding in a nook on one of the engineering decks, protected from view by a number of small objects and pipework.

"So what exactly is the Reef?" she whispered, her voice drowned out by the humming of machinery.

She probably should have asked this before they were _on the ship going there_ , but getting off Mars was seriously all she really cared about.

'It's the home of the Awoken, 4-Vesta and the surrounding asteroid field,' Kali answered her directly, dematerialized as she was.

"The Awoken?"

'A race of people that were caught between the Dark and the Light during the Collapse. The first ones used to be human, but nowadays… not so much. They look human, just… with blueish skin. And glowing eyes. And facial marks. And patterns of light under their skin.'

Well. Okay then.

"But they are… people? Not aliens?"

'Yes? Why?'

She sucked in a sharp breath. "We can't let this attack happen."

Flashes of vague memories. Of death and destruction on a horrendous scale, of pain and—

It was gone. Still, it was enough for her to know that she _couldn't_ let this happen, not if she could do something about it.

'Okay, but how? There's too many Cabal, even for _you_.'

She frowned, thinking. The humming of the room pervaded her thou— Oh. _There_ was an idea.

"Crash."

'What?'

"The ship. We crash it. You can revive me, right? But the Cabal can't."

'…I like this idea.'

She almost laughed. "I thought you would."

'How should we do it, though?'

"A ship this big has to have reverse thrusters, right? And some kind of steering. We could disable those."

'Ah… You do realize that a ship this large impacting an asteroid at the speed it travels through space could still do a lot of damage, right?"

Hrm. "Then we just have to make sure it doesn't hit anything important, don't we?"

Kali laughed. 'I suppose so, Weaver.'

 _Weaver._ The one strong connection she had to her first life, between the sense of endless fighting and conflict. She could almost hear the name spoken in her fuzzy, lost and fragmented memories, over and over by others, some of the clearest memories she had (as clear as they could get, at least).

There was another name, one that she could almost feel right on the tip of her tongue but couldn't say. A sibilant, jagged word that she sometimes heard in dreams but could never hold onto.

'Let's go try to find a free access terminal so we can see where we are,' Kali suggested, drawing her out of her thoughts. 'And avoid raising the alarms while we're at it.'

Oh _great_. More sneaking.

* * *

Thankfully it seemed the crew was bare-bones (which kind of made sense, being a mutiny and all) and she'd only run into a few Cabal, and easily able to find places to hide before they saw her.

They were finally able to find a terminal without any Cabal around it, and Kali got to work immediately, doing her beam-hacking thing again.

"Okay, we're still in hyperspace. We'll be dropping out in a little over twenty minutes," the Ghost said softly. "It looks like the best place for messing with the controls is engineering, since the bridge is probably swarming with Cabal. I've got a map, so let's go!"

Kali dematerialized. 'We need to go right. I'll guide you.'

It almost felt too quiet —only punctuated by the Cabal that had crossed her path— the way she kept to shadows and hid to prevent detection.

'Okay, we're almost there. And… there's probably going to be Cabal in there. Hit them fast, get me to the console, and I'll try to stop any alarms and lock the doors.'

She nodded. "Gun."

The weapon that materialized in her right hand was rather similar to the Cabal's own slug rifles. Which made sense, considering it pretty much _was_ a Cabal slug rifle that she'd scavenged and modified early on.

All three of the weapons she had were like that. Scavenged. Modified. Adapted.

They suited her poorly, but it was the best she could do right now, and finding ammunition for them (well, the slug rifle, at least) was easy.

'And three… two… one.'

She rushed towards the door that Kali pointed out, finding a large room filled with machinery and four Cabal inside.

Before they could even notice her, she'd raised the rifle to her shoulder and fired twice at the closest's head, the helmet exploding at the sudden decompression and the Cabal soldier collapsing.

Tuck. Roll. Cover. Peek. Shoot.

Two down.

Run. Jump, shoot, stab, roll.

Three.

The last bellowed at her as she stood in front of it, unafraid. It barely had a chance to raise its gun before there were two microjets destroying its helmet, a third making sure it was dead before it hit the ground.

"Kali, go," she said, the Ghost materializing instantly and rushing over to the console, beginning her work.

"Already going." The doors shut only seconds later, the large circular lock turning in place.

She took the moment to start collecting ammunition from the aliens' corpses, tucking a set of loaded magazines away and putting the next by Kali so she could dematerialize it when she got a chance.

"Okay. Okay. Um. Controls. Controls. Controls…" the Ghost said to herself.

There was a pounding on the door.

"Kali!"

"It's locked but… oh. They're overriding it. Captain's codes. Weaver, you're going to have to hold them off before they shut me out completely."

She sighed and crouched down behind a short barrier that bordered the elevate control area they were on.

"Rifle."

A weight settled on her back and she pulled it over while storing the modified Cabal weapon.

She both loved and hated this rifle so much.

It was enjoyable. Better than the Cabal gun. It was just too long-range and slow for most purposes. And she only disliked it because of how many times she'd died to it. Stupid Vex.

There was a sort of vindictive pleasure in turning your enemies' weapons on them and then _using them better_.

The lock on the door spun, and she leaned over the barrier, looking down the sights at where she expected them to come in.

The door opened, and right at the front in the center was a Legionary who twisted his head, looking over the room.

Unfortunately, by the time he saw her she'd charged and fired, the upper body vaporized and drifting away into ash.

She didn't pause, immediately starting the next charge and turning to the next visible target, the gun firing after a moment of lining it up.

The door was fully open, and the Cabal took full advantage of the space to rush in faster than she could pick them off, though she still kept charging and firing until they'd gotten half-way across the room, at which point she threw the laser rifle over her shoulder and picked up the Cabal gun.

One. Two. Burst. One. Two. Burst. One. Two—Woops, missed the helmet. Three. Burst.

She rolled, shifting to the other side of the command level and starting to pick the ones who'd started to come up the left ramp off.

Four more Cabal later and it seemed she'd— Oh wait, no, there was more coming in now. And two of them have those annoying shields.

One. Two. Burst. One. Two. Burst. …And now she's getting hit. Time to move.

She shifted locations again, throwing out a compressed ball of the empty energy that Kali said was "Void" right into the middle of the group, the ball expanding into a three-dimensional gravity well that drew the aliens in, tearing them apart and _erasing_ them until it dissipated a few seconds later.

 _Alright what's next?_

"Kali?"

The Ghost didn't look towards her, just continuing her work. "Yeah, I'm almost done. Just a _little_ bit more. We've gotta— AHA! Thought you could take that away from me, well, look who's laughing _now_?"

The doors started closing, drawing her attention, and she saw another wave of Cabal rushing towards the engineering room, a Centurion at the front. When he saw the doors closing, he tromped towards her faster as her view of him narrowed. The last thing she saw was him sticking his hand in the gap as if to pull the doors open himself, and then the sharp _crunch_ of endoskeleton being crushed, his now-detached fingers falling to the floor.

The lock on the door spun closed.

" _Whew_. Almost didn't expect that to work." She turned to Kali, the white-shelled Ghost looking back at her. "Managed to isolate the subsystems for this door, manipulate it, and then lock it all away behind encryption that would take a few decades to crack at _least_. I am _good_."

"So… we're locked in a giant spaceship that we're _trying_ to crash with an angry army outside the doors?" Weaver summarized.

"Well, of _course_ it doesn't sound all that great when you put it like _that_ ," Kali replied petulantly. "Anyways, it looks like the ship's going to be dropping out almost _dangerously_ close to 4 Vesta, probably to try and surprise the Awoken. I disabled the primary reverse thrusters and large-scale direction control. So the Cabal are probably going to fire the secondary thrusters even if it won't do all that much when they see we're going to crash, and _we_ can use the fine controls that I also grabbed access to and direct it somewhere it won't hit anything."

Weaver nodded, replacing the magazine from the Cabal slug rifle (seriously why was it called that? It wasn't a rifle and didn't shoot slugs) and tossing the empty and single half-used ones to Kali, who dematerialized them and would handle automatically refilling them when they were rematerialized.

A pounding on the door had her jumping to attention immediately, weapon aimed at the doorway.

"Don't worry. Just that Centurion's missiles. Nothing short of a tank round's going to get through there," Kali said, sounding pleased with herself. "And they can't get a tank up here. …I checked."

She forced herself to relax, and let Kali dematerialize the weapons as well.

"Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one—" There was a bone-shaking _shudder_ as the ship dropped back into realspace. A moment later there were a series of more shudders, but they felt less _real_ somehow. "Space debris. There's hundreds of wrecked ships out here. That's why it's called the Reef. Not that anything like that could ever stop a Cabal ship. Over-engineering is practically their middle name, and they consider ramming to be a perfectly reasonable tactic. If there's one thing the Cabal do well, it's brute force."

She hummed thoughtfully.

"Alright, impact in less than a minute. Analyzing visual data… Ooooh. There's a nice spot. Nothing around for over twenty miles. Looks like some sort of reserved area that's yet to be developed? Well, too bad. _We've_ got a ship to crash. Adjusting… _That's_ going to be close."

Weaver sat down against the floor and the console, drawing her legs up, her eyes on Kali as the Ghost worked. "Come on, come _on_. …There! Wooo! One Cabal Warship on a perfect impact vector in thirty seconds."

Kali stopped her work, floating over to the seated young woman as the ship began shaking around them. "Kali, if we don't—" she cut herself off, shaking her head. "Thank you. Thank you for giving me a second chance. Thank you for being my Ghost."

The Ghost nudged her cheek before settling into the space between her legs and torso so that Weaver was almost curled around the other. "And thank you for being my Risen," Kali returned, uncharacteristically solemn.

She swallowed and nodded, wrapping herself around the Ghost as the shaking around them worsened, became harsher and suddenly much stronger.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

 **A/N:** Comment, critique, all that. This is extremely rough for me, but then again this entire story is pretty rough for me so maybe that's just par for the course.


	7. Consolation

She sat still on the bed she'd been placed on, sitting up straight with her legs crossed and breathing evenly. The Guardian she was to watch — _Zachary_ , apparently— had gone to get food for them after they realized there was no way she could go out into the Tower right now with all the civilians around. Not until she had at least _some_ measure of control over her power or arrangements could be made.

Maybe she could do something like retract the range so that it only included her? Like a reverse of how it had seemed to expand with conflict. But Lisa had said that the range for _this_ power was fixed, so maybe that wasn't possible?

"Weav— Taylor?"

She opened her eyes to look at her Ghost. "You can still call me Weaver, Kali. It was practically my name in the last years of my first life, and it's what I've had for all of this one."

"What… what are you trying to do? I mean you're meditating…" The Ghost sounded oddly off-balance, like she was lost and didn't know what to do.

"So that growth in my brain that those medics asked about?" she began.

Kali cut her off. "You told them it was 'supposed' to look like that… like a lightning storm of activity. But it's _never_ been active like this before. _I would know!_ "

"Kali…"

"Everything's changing and I don't understand and I-I'm— Weaver, I'm _scared_." Taylor swallowed, her throat thick. "What am I supposed to be _doing_?" the Ghost asked, her voice high and panicked. "I don't even have an idea what you're thinking anymore!"

Taylor held out her hand. "Kali, come here," she said softly, motioning to come towards her.

The Ghost approached slowly, watching Taylor's face, and she felt her heart crack at the thought that Kali was so wary of her now. She'd already screwed up once today, practically declaring that nothing they had done, none of their memories and time together had meant anything to her. That Kali wasn't important to her.

Which was _not_ true. At all. As she rather strongly stated as soon as she realized her mistake.

She drew the Ghost closer to her, holding her gently. "I'm sorry. I can tell you the basics right now, but I don't think I have anywhere near enough time to tell you everything before Zachary gets back."

She took a breath, thoughts organizing themselves. It was strange that she almost couldn't tell whether it was her or her passenger, but at this point she was resigned to the bleed-through.

It was almost ridiculous, really, how she'd been so worried about whether she was being influenced by her passenger when she'd been a Ward, and then willingly having Panacea tear down the walls and strengthen the connection to the point it was now.

"My name was Taylor Hebert. I was born in 1996—"

Kali's shell spread slightly in surprise. "That was before the Golden Age! I-I don't know if I've ever heard of a Risen from before the Golden Age! Then again… they don't really remember much," the Ghost said, before her optic snapped to Taylor's face. "But… how were you on Mars, then? There wasn't commercial spaceflight that early, right?"

Taylor shook her head. "I don't know. I really, _really_ don't know. There's only a few people I know who could have gotten me there, _maybe_."

Contessa. Glaistig Uaine. Dragon and Defiant. And she wasn't even sure if this was Earth-Bet's dimension or not. She had a feeling it wasn't, considering the lack of mentions about odd powers before the Great Machine arrived.

"Anyways. I grew up with my mom and dad. My mom died when I was thirteen, and my dad and I didn't cope very well. I was bullied badly in high school, and it got to the point where I triggered."

"Triggered?" Kali asked curiously.

"My world had… people who exhibited inexplicable abilities. We called them 'parahumans'. And these abilities were generally gained at a moment of extreme emotional stress."

"But… how? Your genetic code doesn't have any abnormal deviations—"

"The Pollentia," Taylor answered.

"What?"

"Potential parahumans were discovered to have an extra region of dense neural connections in their brain—the Corona Pollentia. Where it was located _exactly_ changed from person to person. When someone triggered, a section of it became more active, like… another motor area. That was what let people use their abilities, like they were a new set of muscles and senses. The Gemma."

"And you…"

"I'm… a bit of a special case," Taylor admitted awkwardly. "Eventually we found out that the abilities weren't 'ours'. Humanity's. They were actually fragments of these two creatures from space, all sitting on other Earths. We were just directing them. The Pollentia was like a cable box, the Gemma was the buttons and display on the front, the fragment on the other end was your provider, and you only got so many channels as part of your cable package from your box.

"Except sometimes, if something bad enough happened, you'd trigger again, and your provider would let the box be able to decode _more_ channels. …I had someone hack mine and give me _all_ the channels, but it wasn't HD any more."

Kali stared at her. "…What's a cable box?"

She couldn't help it. She started laughing.

The Ghost floated up as Taylor tried to stop. "No, seriously. What's a cable box?"

She didn't know why it was so funny, but with everything else that had happened that day it just _was_.

It took her a good minute to get a hold of herself and be able to breathe normally again.

"It's like the radio in our Seeker I had to replace last month. A digital signal decoder and decrypter that's used to access a number of different channels, with different channels needing different keys."

"Ohhhhh. …Why didn't you just say that the first time?"

Weaver shrugged. "I'm still… adjusting to all of this. Everything coming back together." She took a breath. "Anyways. The fragments influenced their receivers towards what they wanted —conflict, to learn from how we used the abilities and make them better— but it happened the other way too. We influenced them. The ones of us who had the strongest connections to our passengers could almost feel them, and the influence was stronger. Both ways. And they had to be keeping backups of… us, really, with the Butcher and Glaistig Uaine.

"So when I had my Pollentia altered to give me _more_ , expand my connection even more, well, those limiters were there for our own safety. I became a _monster_ , Kali." Her voice cracked. "I-I thought I was doing the right thing, but I became this… _machine_ that only cared about the next objective, the next fight. I could _feel_ my thoughts slowing down without that drive, that conflict. It's only because of the Light that I'm not like that now."

A memory rose, unbidden. A six year-old Taylor, looking up her Mom, the remnants of broken dinner plates around her. ' _I-I'm sorry!_ ' she blubbered, before her mother drew her into a hug and told her everything was alright.

An apology and sympathetic comfort all in one.

'… _Thanks, Passenger._ '

A vague sense of satisfaction, drawn from a perfect grade she'd gotten in middle school.

"Weaver, I…" the Ghost in her hands floated up so she was eye-level, and then stilled, optic flickering between her eyes. "You would _not_ be my Risen if you weren't worthy of it. That's how it works."

She nodded, a tenuous smile on her face.

"So you're… reconnected to this 'passenger' now? And you got all your memories back through that," Kali summarized.

"Yeah. It's… weird. I've been Weaver longer than I was Taylor. I'm trying to make everything fit but it's like we're two different people, but not? She was so _naïve_ , Kali. Naïve and hypocritical and _selfish_. In the end it always came down to getting her way. But it also explains so much."

"I thin—" the Ghost was cut off as the door to the medical room opened, a still-armored Zachary entering with two different containers of food in his hands.

"Wasn't sure what you wanted, so I got roast beef, beans, and mashed potatoes, and a chicken, vegetable, and rice stir fry. Which one?"

Weaver mentally shifted gears, focusing on the change in topic and resolving to continue the conversation with Kali later.

"The roast beef, please," she said, Zachary handing her the requested container. "Thanks." She opened it eagerly, Kali materializing a set of utensils for her.

Meat in the Reef was… weird. Grown in vats.

Now that she thought about it, she'd never _actually_ had real meat in her entire second life. But she could still remember it as Taylor. This was going to really be messing with her head for a while, wasn't it?

She pushed aside the complicated thoughts and focused on enjoying her dinner.

It made her feel nostalgia in the weirdest ways.

After a minute, she looked up at the heavily-armored man in the chair at the side of the room, eating his own food—though he was doing it with chopsticks.

"Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?"

He looked up at her, seeming surprised. "There's a wall along the southern border of Old Russia. Ghost found me right outside of it. I don't know where I was from originally."

Weaver nodded. "How long've you been around?"

Zachary shrugged. "Three weeks?"

Taylor almost choked, and had to pound on her chest to dislodge something stuck in her esophagus. " _Three weeks_?"

"Yes?" he responded as though not seeing _anything_ wrong with that.

 _My Queen, save me from ignorant fools._

"You're going after the literal _manifestation of darkness in the solar system_ , with only three weeks of experience?"

"Hey, we've done pretty well so far," his Ghost cut in. "We brought you that Gate Lord's head, didn't we?"

Weaver swallowed the words that threatened to emerge, grudgingly admitting that _yes_ , if he could handle a Gate Lord on his own, both of them and two others would likely enough.

And yes, okay, the image of him dropping that head at her Queen's feet was mildly more impressive, now.

Could she have killed a Gate Lord at three weeks? She'd like to think so, at least. And crashing a whole Cabal warship into a major asteroid had its own sort of impact.

…Pun not intended.

"And… you?" he asked warily, as if expecting her to do something for asking her a question. "Mars?"

She nodded. "Yes. That's where Kali found me. The City of Ivraitin, Oxia Palus. Not that it's very different from the _rest_ of Mars. But I'm originally from the East coast of North America."

"I can't imagine what it's like, remembering your first life…"

"Shocking," she told him sharply. "I now have the memories of a girl from six hundred years ago. Or… I remember being her. Or I _was_ her. And _I'm_ six hundred years in the future. It's the worst of culture-shock, in both directions."

He grimaced sympathetically.

… _Wait, why am I even telling him this?_

…

 _Shit._ She was more off-balance than she thought. Getting all those memories back was affecting her more than she expected.

That was _dangerous_.

It would have been easier if the memories of being Taylor were dulled and faded, buried under the years of Weaver, the Queen's Blade.

Instead everything was fresh, like it had just happened yesterday.

Thanks, Passenger.

She could just see Tattletale and Bitch's faces as they realized she was truly lost cause from their place on Rachel's dogs. Imp's reaction as she'd lashed out, cutting at her hands.

No. Not the time to do this. Not here. Not now. Not in front of this Guardian.

She took a breath. Pushed all the emotions aside into the vague swarm of things in her radius. She was sorely feeling the loss of her wide-range precision control over her creatures right now. This… limited direction that she could give them was so much less useful at the moment.

Still, she'd adapted before, and she'd do it again. She'd achieved more with less.

And besides, she had help now.

' _Don't I, Passenger?_ '

A feeling of warm agreement that she felt but didn't come from her.

She'd get through this.

She always did.

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, so. Question. What do you guys think of the shorter chapters? Do you like them? Hate them? Would you rather they were longer?

I've been told pacing feels _fast_ for this story, and in part that's _because_ the chapters are so short: it feels like what divides the story into important chunks snap by _so quick_. You reach the end and it's _next next next_.

There _are_ going to be some shorter chapters no matter what. I'm going to be including both outside perspectives and Grimoire-style segments which will _naturally_ be shorter. But for Taylor and Zachary's narrative, what are your thoughts and feelings?

Does the faster update interval affect your opinion?

Tell me! (Please?)


	8. Council

Three leaders stood at their long table, the large room around them empty as dusk fell outside the large windows at the end of the room. At the end of the table, a tall blue-skinned man armored in full cut an imposing figure that sharply contrasted both the shorter dark-skinned woman dressed in clothes akin to robes and the bright blue android in light leather-like armor accented by a long cape.

"So. Onto the final topic today before we conclude today's meeting. I have heard we have a… visitor," Zavala said, looking between his counterpart Vanguard Leaders. "From the Reef?"

"The Weaver," Ikora confirmed.

"That's… ominous," Cayde-6 noted, crossing his arms.

"My Hidden have told me that in the Reef she's also known as the 'Queen's Blade', one of her favored enforcers and among the most skilled of her guards," Ikora informed them. "…And she is human."

"But the Awoken don't host anybody other than themselves," Cayde said. "We know that. You can visit, but you can't stay."

"Yes. Well. _She_ would appear to be the exception to that rule," remarked Zavala.

"Fine. Humanity aside, what's she here for?" Cayde asked.

"One of the Titans—" "Zachary—" the other two started at the same time, then looked at each other, Zavala motioning with his hand for Ikora to speak. She took a breath, then restarted.

"One of the Titans came to me with word and questions about the Black Garden, the Heart at its center, and its interactions with the Traveler. He was given his information by an Exo woman he had encountered in the Ishtar ruins on Venus. After I confirmed his Ghost's suggestion that the Awoken would have the best knowledge of how to reach it, he thanked me and left."

Zavala nodded. "Zachary requested a mission to visit the Reef and attempt contact with the Awoken in an effort to gain entrance to the Black Garden, which I approved. Later, I received a completion report saying he had been successful, and requested a follow-up mission to hunt a Vex Gate Lord and return to the Reef, which I also approved. The report after that was positive as well, noting that the Queen had assigned him protection and assistance, which we know now was the Weaver."

"That's…"

"Unexpected, yes. But not unappreciated," said Ikora.

"But why now?" Cayde asked. "Why not earlier?"

"Perhaps something has changed?" Zavala offered.

"My Hidden haven't reported any significant events or recent shifts for the Awoken."

There was a lull in the conversation as they considered the possibilities.

"…I hate mysteries," Cayde commented, breaking the silence and saying what they were all thinking. "So she's here, now. And something happened, right? There're rumors."

"Zachary requested medical support as he approached the Tower. He arrived with a woman who was in a near-catatonic state and unresponsive, so they moved her to a medical room," Ikora recounted. "Five hours later, she regained consciousness, but reported that there was a barrier around her with a radius of sixteen feet that only Guardians could enter and that she'd likely need to stay in the Tower until she was able to disable it. She said that a meditation room would be enough if we had them."

"Well, _I_ heard that people saw a Ghost around her," Cayde said. "So either she's just randomly carrying a Ghost around or…"

"Or she is a Guardian," Zavala concluded, Ikora nodding. He looked at his two counterparts. "We need to know more."

"I'm going to grant her request for a meditation room as well as have accommodations in the Tower offered if she would like them. Whatever else she is, she's still a highly-valued member of the Queen's personal retinue," Ikora told them.

Cayde looked between them, silent for a moment.

"I'll talk to her."

The others looked back at him.

"Out of the three of us, who do you think she might be more open to? The… serious, imposing Titan," he gestured at Zavala, "the secretive, intelligent Warlock," his other hand went up towards Ikora, "or the roguish, easy-going, _nonthreatening_ Hunter?" he finished, indicating towards himself.

Ikora slowly nodded. "That… could work."

"So we're good then? Everything's decided, nothing more for tonight…?" Cayde asked.

Zavala sighed "…Yes. You may leave, Cayde."

"Great. See you tomorrow!" And without another word the Exo turned and strode out of the large room.

Ikora and Zavala just looked at each other, commiserating in silence over their third teammate.


	9. Tower

Kali watched Weaver as a golden structure resembling a helmet flickered around her head, sputtering for a few moments before finally stabilizing in a golden glow.

"Finally," Weaver sighed, letting out a breath while closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose.

The Ghost floated closer. "Are you okay?"

The woman swallowed and nodded, rearranging her legs where she was sitting. "Just disorienting. And _wrong_. But I'll deal with it."

"Wrong?"

She looked at Kali. "Yeah, it's like having a piece of yourself missing that shouldn't be. …I-I can't explain it really well. Like knowing you were supposed to be able to see, but not having your eyes, and then getting them back but having to close them so that you can't see again. Except it's deeper, a part of you."

The closest thing Kali could imagine was not having the Light, and even that…

Her shell-plates contracted and shuddered at the thought.

"At least now we can do things around here, right?" Weaver said calmly, but the mild discomfort and tension in her was so obvious to Kali, and the Ghost once again wondered how she ended up with such a complex partner.

 _You searched every planet in the inner system for centuries, that's how,_ a part of her said, and she couldn't disagree with it. Weaver had been worth it.

"What kinds of things do you want to do?" Kali asked, drifting a bit and examining the ethereal lines of Light that her Risen had woven into a pattern that thrummed with _contain suppress insulate_ in four dimensions.

"Who's that emissary that's out here? The one that was exiled?" Weaver asked, her eyes following Kali's path and a small smile appearing at her Ghost's inspection.

Kali accessed her database. "Petra Venj."

Weaver nodded. "We should probably meet her and ask her if she has any critical news to pass to the Queen. Also get information on this city." She glanced over at Kali. "Unless _you_ have any…"

Kali twisted her core back and forth in her shell. "Not any that would be up-to-date. It's been over a century and a half since I was last here."

The woman appeared thoughtful. "I'll send a message home right after that about the situation and ask Her Grace if there's anything she'd like me to do while we're here. And a preliminary report and request to the Techeun Order on their augmentations." Her expression twisted into a grimace. "I just know they're not going to be thrilled about that."

She looked at Kali. "Any other thoughts? Maybe go looking for some Golden Age tech we can use for Solemn Silence. Or Combustion Therapy. I think the ignition lasers might need a truly intelligent control system. The rounds keep coming out half-formed."

"You can never have too many guns," Kali agreed. "Oooh, and the Gunsmith! I'll bet ten glimmer that it's still Banshee."

"Banshee?"

"Banshee… uh, 44?"

Weaver's eyes widened. " _Forty four_? I thought Exos could only go through up to twenty wipes!"

"Yeah, well. Banshee's been around since the Golden Age," Kali's shell expanded and then contracted slightly, as though shrugging. "He's like, a fixture."

The woman hummed, pushing herself up off the ground to standing. "What time is it?"

"Nearly one in the morning," Kali answered.

Weaver groaned. "This took longer than I'd hoped but it's still shorter than I expected. Ugh. You have a route to that room they gave us?"

The Ghost bobbed, pulling up the data-packet she'd gotten from the man who had led them to the meditation room. "It's six floors down."

The Risen woman sighed, dusting herself off. "Well, let's go try to get _some_ sleep tonight. We'll probably need it."

* * *

Kali drifted back to consciousness, systems coming online and running through their self-diagnostics as she exited her sleep cycle. She blinked a couple times, optic coming into focus.

The room that the Tower had given them was less a room and more a small apartment, practically luxurious with its balcony that looked out on the mountains that surrounded the City.

The Ghost floated up from the table she'd been resting on, looking at her partner who was sitting on the couch in front of it, the glowing wireframe helmet around her head, a steaming mug in her hand.

"Tea. Found it in one of the cupboards. It's my first time having it in six hundred years," Weaver said with a wry smile. "You were resting a lot longer than usual, it's almost noon."

"You could have woken me up," Kali countered. "It's not like I _need_ to sleep."

Weaver shrugged. "There isn't anything really pressing. And you're cute when you sleep. Like a small animal or something."

"Oh, well I'm certainly glad I'm on the same level as a _small animal_ , to you," Kali shot back humorously, and Weaver shook her head with a smile in response.

It seemed like she was starting to act more like herself again.

"You ready to go looking around? Find Petra?" Weaver asked.

Kali was about to reply in the affirmative when there was a knock on the suite's door. Weaver turned to her right to look at it, placing her cup down on the glass of the table before getting up and walking towards it, Kali floating behind her.

Weaver opened the door, momentarily staring at the large figure standing in the hallway before responding. "Zachary?"

The man gave a conciliatory look. "Uh. Hey. I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

Weaver shook her head. "No."

Zachary relaxed a little. "Good. I was wondering if you'd like me to show you around the Tower? It's my fault you're here, after all. I feel a bit responsible." He paused for a moment as if remembering something, and then added "…If you can, with that field of yours."

'It'd be helpful,' Kali sent Weaver.

'And they probably want to keep an eye on us,' Weaver added. 'I know that I would if the situation were reversed.'

After a moment, Kali's partner nodded. "It's under control. When? Now?"

"If you don't mind?" Zachary asked.

"Now's fine," Weaver said, stepping through the doorway and closing it behind her after Kali had followed her out.

The hallway (like most of the Tower) was largely utilitarian, concrete walls and bright overhead lights. It was a contrast to what she and Weaver were used to in the Reef, which was either metal walkways and halls as though modeled after ships, or soft aesthetics that made it easy to forget they were really just living on a giant rock less than six hundred kilometers across.

They were about halfway down the hall towards the lift when Zachary turned to her. "So the helmet's new?"

Weaver glanced at him. "It's what's suppressing my field."

"You made it? I've only seen stuff like that from the Warlocks," he commented.

"The scholars, right?" Weaver asked as they got in the lift and it started moving up.

Zachary nodded. "They do all the weird stuff with Light and try to figure new things out."

She looked at him oddly. "You have access to power that literally defies physics and logic and you _don't_ try to figure out everything it can do?"

The Titan shrugged. "What I have works."

"That's…" Weaver just shook her head. "Whatever."

Kali could just _feel_ how much that bothered Weaver, the woman who had spent _decades_ refining her control and use of the Light, exploring its limits (or rather, the lack thereof). Training and improvement had been the singular constant in their life ever since Kali had first resurrected Weaver, and it had only become moreso when they'd joined the Queen's Guard. Weaver could do things with the Light that Kali had never heard of, and she had to wonder if it was because she'd spent so much time on it, or because she'd never been told that she _couldn't_ do those things.

The lift stopped and they got off, Kali and Weaver following Zachary as he led them through a hallway with light at the end. As they emerged into the light, the Titan gestured around.

"So this is the Tower," he said, but Weaver wasn't looking at the courtyard or spires, the kiosks or booths, instead her eyes were glued to the floating white sphere before them that was so large it almost defied comprehension.

The Traveler.

Weaver silently walked out into the courtyard and then towards the railing at the edge of the Tower, just staring at the thing before them that was casually defying gravity.

"And that's the Traveler," Zachary noted, making Weaver look over at him before turning back to the white sphere.

"The Great Machine." Her voice was quiet as she stared up. "The one that created the Ghosts. …There are so many stories about it. Legends." Weaver looked at Zachary. "There aren't many happy endings."

 _The Whirlwind,_ Kali thought. _The shape-stealers. The wish dragons. The Mast._

Stories and dark legends the Eliksni had brought with them from the stars. _Warnings_ , of just what horrors were possible in the galaxy, the kind that the Traveler inadvertently pulled in its wake.

She'd always wondered about her creation. The very _name_ for the thing that created her race had come from humans. The _only_ thing that Ghosts knew when they'd first awoke was that they had a purpose, and that purpose was to seek out and join another.

There'd been no information on the Traveler. Or the Light. To them, before the names, before the knowledge, it had simply been their creator and _energy_. They were constructs, but empty.

Ghosts.

 _Bilavos_ , the Eliksni call them. "Small-lights." _Sparks._

(Secretly, she thought that name was much nicer. More appropriate. But Ghosts they were named and Ghosts they'd be.)

Weaver shook her head, turning away from the Traveler to face the Titan next to her. "So, where to?"

And so began their tour. First it was the hangar, bare metal, full of ships and mechanics, smelling like oil and fuel (and yes she could smell, thank you very much. Air-quality sensors and atmospheric analysis was _important_ when you regularly went to other planets). The courtyard that looked out on the city, with its booths and kiosks and merchants. The calm strip behind it looking out on the Sikhote-Alin mountains. The Vanguard area that descended _into_ the Tower, though they didn't go down there. The North area, with its higher number of civilians and the Speaker's chamber.

There'd only really been one notable interaction: that with a blue Exo who stood behind a set of tables, numerous weapons mounted on the wall behind him and a glimmer fab at the back corner.

Kali had rushed over as soon as she'd seen him, and the Exo had looked up from the disassembled weapons on the table that he was working with towards their group.

"Hey Banshee! Remember me? Kali? …Probably not. It's been a few centuries."

The Exo stared at her for a moment then shook his head. "Sorry. See a lot of Ghosts around here." His voice was just as rough as she remembered, too.

Banshee looked between her and the group. "Is there something I can help you with?" he asked, optics flicking down for a moment to the Queen's emblem on Weaver's chest-piece and then back up.

"Not really—" Zachary started before Weaver interrupted him.

"Actually, yes. I'm looking for Golden Age parts. Smart processor for fire control, superconducting energy conduits, zero-point power cells?" Weaver said.

"You're gonna have a hard time finding that kind of stuff around here," Banshee told her. "I might be able to do some looking and dig some things up, but you'd probably have better luck on your own. Searching places out in the wild. There's a lot of that sort of stuff out there. 's just gotta be found."

Weaver frowned but nodded. "Alright. Thanks."

"Anytime. Just come by if you want me to take a look at what you're doing," the Exo offered. "I've seen just about every kind of gun out there. Might still be able to help."

'He's probably not even exaggerating,' Kali commented to her partner. 'He's likely the best gunsmith in the solar system.'

'He could probably teach me a thing or two, is what you're saying,' Weaver sent back.

'You said it, not me,' Kali returned cheerily.

"…Later maybe?" Weaver offered, looking at the gunsmith.

"I'll be here," Banshee returned dryly. "Same as always."

Up until venturing into the North Tower, Weaver and Kali had only gotten a few curious looks from the various armored people that had been around in the hangar and the courtyard. But here, with the ones who were clearly civilians, there was obvious staring and whispering.

It was different from the Reef. In the Reef, people saw Weaver as something _good_. Someone who protected them, someone to look up to, to emulate. The kind of person that children shyly ran up to to say hello in the streets and plazas.

(Kali had laughed at how off-balance Weaver had been the first time it had happened.)

That was not how it was here. The looks were cautiously curious, some filled with suspicion. Calculating.

It reminded Kali of their early years of living among the Awoken.

It was uncomfortable.

Weaver seemed to ignore it easily. Kali knew she noticed it, categorized it and threat-assessed every single person because that was just _Weaver_ in a new place. But almost as soon as they were noticed they were dismissed, and Kali could feel just how unmoved by it her partner was.

…Which led to where they were now, Weaver and Zachary eating lunch at one of the food bars in the North Tower.

"So what's food like in the Reef?"

Weaver looked up from her bowl of noodles. "It's artificially grown. Meat in vats. Plants in hydroponics. Vertical farming. The colony ships were more than prepared to replicate a living environment, and that included seeds and genetic information that could be reproduced. Unfortunately, cows don't exactly live very easily in space. So we had to come up with a different solution."

Zachary nodded. "…You talk about it like you're one of them. Awoken."

"Because I _am_. Maybe not physically, but they _are_ my people," Weaver stated strongly. "When I was lost, they gave me meaning. When I was alone, they welcomed me. When I needed time, they waited patiently. When I needed a purpose, they gave me one."

Kali didn't remember it being _quite_ like that, but it was close enough.

"And the Queen?"

"What about her?" Weaver asked, an edge of warning slipping into her voice.

"She's not exactly… welcoming to outsiders, is she? But you…?"

"The Queen is, and always has been, my strongest supporter. When nobody else was willing to see me as worthy of consideration, _she_ saw something in me and gave me the chance to prove myself," Weaver said. "She welcomed me freely and gave me the chance to become more and work towards something greater when I had nothing else, and I will _always_ be in her debt for that."

"Heeeeyyy there guys."

Without warning, a blue Exo had sat down on the sit to the right of Weaver, dressed in light armor and wearing a cloak like some of the other Guardians they'd seen in the Tower.

"Cayde?"

 _Ah. Him._

'One of the Vanguard leaders,' Kali sent Weaver.

'Yes, I know,' Weaver returned, the thought tinged with amusement.

'Just making sure~'

"Hey Zach! How're you doing? Who's your friend?" The Exo paused, looking between Weaver and Zachary. "Wait, is this like a date or something?"

The immediate, overlapping ' _No_ ' from all three of them —Kali included— was almost comedic.

Cayde held up his hands. "Just asking." He looked over at the man who'd just walked out of the kitchen area. "Can I get a number three? Extra noodles?" The man nodded, wiping his hands on a towel before going back to where he'd come from.

The blue Exo turned back to them. "So. What's up? Who's the new face? _Really_ nice helmet by the way."

Zachary glanced at Weaver for a moment. "This is Ta—"

"Weaver," Kali's partner interrupted. "My name is Weaver. And this is Kali."

"Hello!" Kali greeted.

The Exo nodded knowingly. "Alright. Well, I'm Cayde-6. And this is Josephine," he said, looking at the grey and red Ghost that flashed into existence next to his head. "Say hi, Jojo."

"H-hi?" the Ghost greeted hesitantly.

Weaver took a breath and released the sudden hold her hand had gained on the hand cannon that was forever at her thigh.

"A little jumpy there?" Cayde asked, and then looked down at the white and gold-traced grip that held the Queen's emblem on it. "Nice gun. Mind if I take a look? Handguns are sort of my thing."

Weaver hesitated for a moment, but then looked at the Exo's own gun on _his_ leg, and moved to unclip the restraining strap, pulling it out and somehow single-handedly palming the ammo cartridge before flipping the gun around and holding it out to Cayde by the barrel.

A black body and white grip accented by patterns of purple and gold, with a dark purple metal piece above the barrel that had its own golden accents, it was blocky and hard-cut in design, and the purple almost seemed like it was drinking in the light around them.

"Nice balance" Cayde commented, looking over the detail work. "It feels a bit… weird though. Heavy for a daily driver. What do you use it for?"

Weaver looked at him flatly. "Executions."

Both Cayde and Zachary stared at her. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you call it, now."

"Its name is Final Mercy," she said, holding out her hand, with the Exo placing the gun in her palm. A few seconds later and the cartridge was back in place and the weapon strapped to her thigh.

"Okay then. Well. …You know, I really don't know how to respond from that," Cayde said. "I am now both morbidly fascinated and afraid to know more."

They were saved from the awkward silence that followed by the man from the back coming out, carrying a bowl and putting it in front of the Exo, who split the chopsticks at his place and started eating, the other two returning to their own meals before it got cold.

After a few minutes, Cayde looked up at Weaver and Kali. "So are you like, together?" he asked, gesturing between them with his chopsticks.

"…You're asking if I'm a Guardian," Weaver restated.

"Well, okay, yeah, you could say that," he admitted. "…So are you?"

She looked at him for a moment before responding. "No. I'm not one of your Guardians." Kali saw Zachary blink in surprise before a look of understanding appeared.

"So then, what, she just travels with you?" Cayde asked.

"I'm not one of your Guardians. But I _am_ Risen," Weaver told him, before picking up another bunch of noodles and eating them.

Cayde stared. "Okay. Wow. Talk about a blast from the past. I haven't heard _that_ in like, _centuries_." He looked at Zachary. "You found a real live one, didn't you?" He turned back to Weaver. "So what are you doing out in the Reef? First thing most Gua– ' _Risen_ ' do is come to the Tower. Why didn't you?"

"Because I _couldn't_ ," she replied. "I was stranded in the Reef, but still did what I could. When I went before the Queen, she found me… _different_ enough to take me in. To give me a home."

Weaver gave Cayde a pointed look. "Your Last City does not have a monopoly on suffering or need of help," she said forcefully. "And I believe that I do more good at my Queen's side than I would in a place that already has enough who can help them." She went back to her soup.

Kali wanted to laugh. Weaver was channeling the Queen _so much_ right now. She didn't even think her partner was aware of it, but to Kali, who was with her _all the time_ , it was glaringly obvious. The way Weaver's speech became more refined, the way she talked about the Reef.

She really loved her partner.

Cayde nodded. "Alright, fair. But, it's not like the Reef is exactly… _open_. To either help or helping. And it's everybody's solar system that's at stake."

"We work in our own ways and have more than enough to do ourselves without getting involved in your battles," Weaver told him.

The Exo raised an eyebrow-plate, and then looked between her and Zachary wordlessly.

Weaver sighed. "Yes, I know. Don't expect me to understand my Queen's decisions. They are hers and hers alone. I'm simply her Blade."

Liiiies.

Kali knew her partner knew _exactly_ what this mission meant. It was a test, a sign, and a hint of the possibility of maybe _more_ like this. And it meant that the Queen's slow plots of breaking their isolation were being set into motion after _decades_ of stabilizing the Reef following the turmoil that the integration of the Houses of Wolves and Judgment caused.

"Speaking of which, I know your name, but what do you do?" Weaver asked, not giving anything away. "I know that Zachary is a 'Titan'," she said, and he nodded. "And from what I understand you're a 'Hunter'?"

"Yep," Cayde agreed. "In fact, I'm the Vanguard Leader for the Hunters. Don't do as much fieldwork as I'd like, but it's a good job."

"Huh. Imagine that," Weaver commented.

"Yeah, imagine that."

They both fell silent for a minute, Weaver going back to her food, before Cayde interjected.

"…You totally already knew that, didn't you?" She just raised an eyebrow in imitation of what he'd done earlier as she finished off the last of her soup. "You _did_. Oh, you are… Yeah, okay, touché."

"I didn't say anything," Weaver countered, but Kali felt her amusement.

"Nah, you don't have to. I _know_. It's like dealing with Ikora all over again," he looked her over. "…You're not a Warlock, are you?" He turned to Zachary. "Is she?"

"Um. She's something… different?" he answered hesitantly, looking at Weaver while he did so.

"Oh _really_? Now you've got me curious," Cayde told them. "You wouldn't happen to be willing to, say, go a few rounds in the Crucible, would you? Bit of a friendly competition?"

"Against you?" Weaver asked.

"Well, I mean, I don't really have much time to—" he started, stopping at Weaver's stare. "You know what? You know _what_? Sure. You. Me. Ten other random Guardians that Shaxx pulls from who-knows-where. Yeah."

Weaver glanced at Kali.

'What do you think? I'm not sure this is what exactly what our Queen intended for me to do. But then again it _might_ be, showing the strength of the Reef? Unless we lose, in which case we look weak. Even just turning down his offer might affect our practically non-existent but still important reputation. What I do reflects on the Queen, and he almost certainly has a _lot_ more experience with that "centuries" comment.'

'I don't know. But I'm with you whatever choice you make.'

'Ugh. This is why I hate politics,' her partner complained. 'But, thanks.'

"Tomorrow?" Weaver offered the Exo.

"Tomorrow it is," Cayde agreed. "Say… three o'clock?"

"Three o'clock," Weaver echoed, her grin sharp. "It's a date."


	10. Petra

So I just realized I never posted this to AO3 or FFN, so _whoops._ Here you go. Next chapter'll be another past-chapter with more of Weaver's Adventures in the Reef.

* * *

Petra isn't quite what Kali expected.

Then again, she isn't entirely sure _what_ she expected, so there is that.

What she got was them finding an Awoken woman at a bar, drinking, her outfit looking like she couldn't decide between wearing the clothes that Kali and Weaver had seen during Zachary's (rather extensive, actually) tour of the City, or those more like what was seen in the Reef.

"Are you Petra Venj?" Weaver asked, seating herself on the stool two seats down.

"Why? Who wants to kn—" Her words stopped suddenly as she turned and saw Weaver's armor, illuminated by the soft glow of her ephemeral helmet. The hand holding Petra's glass whitened. "Is this supposed to be some kind of Guardian joke? Have another laugh at the exiled Awoken? You don't _deserve_ to wear that emblem, City-girl." She turned to face forward. "And you got the colors wrong, besides."

Weaver's spine straightened.

 _Here we go…_ Kali thought to herself.

"I'm from the Reef. Not the City," Weaver countered calmly, though Kali could feel the irritation she was suppressing.

Petra snorted. "Oh? Really? Try again, because I'm a century too old for that to work. There _are_ no humans living in the Reef. The Queen doesn't—"

"The Queen does what she wills," Weaver interrupted.

The Awoken woman's expression darkened. "This isn't amusing anymore. You've had your fun. Now leave."

"No."

" _No_?" Petra echoed.

"I'm one of the Queen's Guard, se—" Weaver was cut off by almost hysterical laughter.

"You. One of the _Queen's Guard_?" Petra repeated, breathlessly.

' _Kali. Left arm please,_ ' Weaver sent, and Kali could feel the restrained frustration and waning patience behind the request.

The Ghost obligingly dematerialized the left arm of her partner's armor, revealing a black and white tattoo that seemed to almost glow underneath the skin. The tattoo started mid-bicep and climbed until it disappeared under Weaver's chest-piece.

Pieces of it moved, twisting and changing at random, while other sections—a crown inside an eight-pointed starburst, a collection of three knives, a shield and spear, and the scarab that Weaver had taken as her icon upon gaining her title, its wings spread wide around her shoulder, in front of a large sword—shifted in other, subtler ways.

Petra's laugh had slowed to a stop until she was staring at the symbols with wide eyes.

"I am Weaver of the Royal Awoken Guard. You _will_ give me the respect such a position merits," Weaver stated harshly. "And I _will not_ accept any more insinuations that I serve our Queen with anything less than the respect and loyalty she deserves."

A blue hand seemed to reach out without conscious thought, the tattoo moving faster, as if agitated, the closer it got.

"…We used to dream about receiving one of these," Petra said softly. "But after Amethyst… I chose the Corsairs. Still, a _human_ …"

Weaver huffed and rolled her eyes, the Awoken woman looking up at her face. "Isn't this a conflict of interest for a Guardian?"

"I'm not a member of the Vanguard. Her Grace found me first," Weaver said. "This is my first visit to Earth since my original death."

"Oh. Well, it's not _my_ preference but perhaps you…?" Petra led.

Weaver shook her head. "The sky's too empty. There's not enough metal around me and the Great Machine just _looms_ overhead."

The Awoken woman laughed. "Yes! Exactly!"

After a minute, Petra schooled herself. "Do you bring news?" And then she straightened. "Am… Am I being recalled?" The hope in her voice was almost palpable.

Kali replaced Weaver's sleeve, her partner adjusting it momentarily. "No major news. I've only been assigned by the Queen to assist in a mission of interest, and that's what led me to the City."

"Ah…" The disappointment was carefully hidden, but still noticeable. "I understand. Anything else then? Any other happenings? I receive so little out here."

Weaver's fingers tapped against the counter-top. "The Houses of Judgment and Wolves have been fully integrated and now serve as part of the forces. There have been a few… minor incidents, but they were ended swiftly."

And of course Weaver neglected to mention that _she_ had played no small part in stopping them so quickly. Kali wanted to sigh.

"Awoken population levels have been slowly rising since the Wars and we've been expanding the infrastructure to match," the Risen woman said. "There was a brief attack on Vesta by a splinter faction of the Cabal a couple decades ago, but that was dealt with without issue. None of the other legions have shown any signs of changing their patterns."

Petra nodded and sipped at her drink.

"Can I get you anything?"

Weaver blinked and looked over at the bartender who'd walked over at some point in the conversation. She turned to Petra. "Anything good?"

The Awoken woman shook her head. "No Reef wine, no Vestian sugar-spirits, no Pallasian raki, no firewater, not even any bloody simple _rebaijiu_."

Weaver just stared for a moment before turning to the bartender. "I'm guessing it's too much to ask for you to have any ether at _all_ for mixed drinks."

The bartender just slowly shook his head, eyes wide.

" _Sherbavos_ ," Weaver sighed. " _Fine_. Just… just bring me a gin and tonic then. Hard to get that wrong."

The man nodded and quickly left.

"Probably not even worth it without the ether-water," Weaver muttered.

"Where'd you get a taste for that, anyways?" Petra asked.

Weaver just looked at her. "Drinking with the Eliksni in my squad for twenty years."

Petra nodded. "That _would_ do it."

"You used to work with the Techeun Order, right?" Weaver questioned.

"Mmm," Petra hummed after another sip. "Yes. I grew up among them. Why?"

"How willing would they be to share their augmentations with someone outside the order?"

Petra gave a slight frown. "Just the augments? I… cannot see them being _too_ unwilling, especially if it were a matter of health or importance. Why?"

Weaver reached up and pointed at the golden strands around her head as the bartender returned with a glass and placed it in front of her. "I have an… innate ability that I don't have much control over that I only regained recently."

"And you think the Techeun's augmentations could help you?" Petra asked incredulously.

Weaver took a sip of her drink and sighed in mild disappointment before looking back at Petra. "It's not from the Sky or the Deep. I have an entire extra region in my brain, what… thirty-five, forty percent, Kali?" The Ghost bobbed in affirmation. "A whole additional cortex, essentially, that normal humans don't have, mostly centered in my parietal lobe, but it stretches through my entire brain."

Petra nodded from where she was drinking, motioning to go on.

"It's what lets me have control over my ability, or… it used to." Weaver winced. "Somebody… changed it, but what I gained in strength I lost in control, among other things. So I need something that'll help with my control. Right now it's either on… or blocked," Weaver said, motioning at the tracery helmet. "And it's a physical issue, so no amount of meditation's going to help me."

"What's so bad that you have to lock it up like that?" Petra asked. "One of the first things we were taught with the Techeun was to not suppress our abilities."

Weaver eyed her, and then took a long drink. "I control people."

Petra blinked. "What?"

" _I control people_ ," Weaver repeated. "Fifteen point nine-eight feet. If someone's within that distance, they are _mine_. They can't move, can't react, can't _breathe_ unless I will it. Unless I do it for them."

"Oh. I see. Yes. Well." Petra cleared her throat. "I can see how that might be a problem."

Weaver simply gave her a look, and Kali couldn't blame her.

"I think that in a case such as yours, they would be willing to assist you. Especially as one of the Guard," Petra told her.

Kali's partner nodded. "Good."

They fell into silence for a few minutes, each drinking slowly.

"What do you do here?"

Petra looked over at Weaver. "I… well, my official position is as our Queen's emissary. But… there's not exactly much need for one when there's no communication between the Reef and this City, is there?" The blue skinned woman sighed. "In the beginning I tried to collect information for the Queen, but the people here, I tried to connect with them, to understand them and the way they live but…"

"They aren't the Awoken," Weaver finished.

"No, no they are not," Petra agreed, taking a drink. "And so here I am, official 'emissary', unable to act in any other capacity, and with nothing to do each year but wait for something to change."

Talk about _punishment._

The Queen never did do things half-way.

"I am lucky the Queen mercifully provides me with enough funds to make do each year. I shudder to think about the position I'd be in otherwise."

Weaver hummed in sympathy. She looked at her glass, took a large drink, and then sighed. "I'll be here at least through the end of the week," she said, an open-ended statement if Kali ever heard one.

Petra just nodded in acknowledgment.

After a few silent minutes, Petra looked at Weaver.

"So tell me about the ships they've got you flying these days…"


	11. Reef

Kali's power systems flickered a moment before stabilizing. Deep diagnostics ran for a few seconds before her iris finally blinked on, her core twisting wildly around to see what was happening.

"Kali!"

The Ghost looked up and saw the face of her Risen. "Weaver?"

Her current cradle of Weaver's hand jostled as the young woman's feet hurried through… wherever they were, Kali's lens currently blocked from being able to see anything other than her partner.

"Oh thank God, you're okay. I thought, I was starting to think–" Weaver's voice grew thick, but then she shook her head.

"I'm _fine_ , Weaver," Kali said, lifting out of her partner's hand, her shell-pieces flying apart and then counter-rotating before snapping back to her core. "See? Nothing wrong."

She turned around and looked at their surroundings. "But… where are we?"

There wasn't much to see, just regolith below their feet, and darkness above with shapes inside, hazy and indistinct, almost like it was foggy.

"About two miles away from the ship. I had enough of the Light to bring myself back as soon as it settled. There was a hull breach only a few halls over, and I left from there."

Kali was once again rather glad Weaver had learned to self-resurrect so quickly. It certainly made some things easier.

Like surviving (potentially) certain death.

"Where are we going?"

Weaver glanced over at her. "No idea. It didn't look like there was anything in any direction, at least not before the horizon, so I just picked a direction."

"Vesta's horizon is only about a kilometer away."

Kali's partner nodded. "Yeah, I figured it was about that since I couldn't see the ship after fifteen minutes."

"Has there been anything else?" Kali asked.

"Not much. A few small ships passed overhead ten minutes ago, but they were moving too fast to try and signal."

"Ah." Kali paused, trying to think of how best to word what she was going to say next. "That's… probably a good thing. The Awoken aren't exactly, _welcoming_. To anyone. Risen especially."

"Why not?" Weaver asked.

Kali sighed. "History. History and politics. Essentially."

Weaver glanced at her. "Go on."

"Well, um. During the Collapse, the Awoken were stuck out here. No-one knows how they survived, when so many others died. But they did, and they carved out an existence here, far beyond anything else. They've always been reclusive and closed off, and they never reached out to help Earth and the Last City, even when it was on the verge of being destroyed. The only time I know of that they've worked with the City and the Guardians was during the Ahamkara hunts.

"The last I'd heard from the other Ghosts is that the Reef tracked a Fallen group to Earth and nine Guardians from the City were caught in the airstrike. _Nothing_ in that valley survived," Kali said softly. "Since then, relations have been… cold."

She looked at Weaver. "As in, total radio silence, nothing in or out."

Weaver stared forward. "So they're unlikely to help us get a ship then."

"Unfortunately," Kali agreed.

Her partner sighed. "We'll have to be careful, then. See if there's some way we _can_ get one and leave without drawing too much attention."

Kali bobbed in acceptance.

"That'll probably mean you'll have to hide yourself so I can be seen as a normal person," Weaver told her. "If they really react so badly to Risen."

Ugh. Kali really did not like being stuck in subspace unless there was fighting happening. The time on the Cabal ship had been more than enough for her today, but it was looking like she'd have to endure it some more.

Weaver peered at the horizon as they moved forward. "I think I see some lights."

Within a few minutes it became apparent it was more than a _few_ lights.

"…Serenna," Kali whispered.

Her partner looked at her. "What?"

"Serenna. It's one of the largest cities on Vesta from what I got off that map. It's probably what the Cabal were targeting," the Ghost explained.

Weaver nodded. "And where there's lots of people, there's likely to be _some_ who would be willing to help."

Ehhh… "Probably?"

She didn't want to put down the woman's hopes, but the Reef _really_ did not like outsiders.

"Can you change my clothes so that I don't look so… foreign?" Weaver asked, and Kali blinked.

"Maaaaybe? I'd need to see what sort of things they wear, but at least for now I can make you look less obviously like a Guardian."

Kali looked at the available smart-matter they had and started programming some into unassuming clothes, looser fabrics that would hide lines and armor, making Weaver appear more civilian.

"Also, whatever you do _don't use your Light,_ " Kali said. "It's probably the fastest way to give away what you are. What _we_ are."

Weaver nodded as Kali materialized the clothes she'd fabricated, replacing the generic helmet with a lower-face mask that covered Weaver's nose and cheekbones, and a hooded cloak to cast the rest of her face in darkness and obscure her face.

"Actually, can you channel a bit of Light to your eyes?"

Weaver's brow furrowed, but bit her lip and appeared to concentrate for a moment. After a second, her eyes started glowing with soft inner light.

"A little less…" The glowing wavered, and then slowly started dimmed until it was just her irises. "That! There! Can you hold that?" Kali asked.

"I think so?" Weaver responded hesitantly. "It takes more concentration than energy."

"Perfect." Kali drifted back, looking at her partner. Dressed in the loose subdued grays and whites, with a hooded cloak, hidden lower face, and glowing eyes that peered out from the darkness under the hood, Kali thought Weaver passed as a reasonably mysterious Awoken woman.

"Now, let's see what this city's like."

* * *

It reminded Kali a bit of the Last City, actually. They were on the outskirts and there were few (or more accurately, no) people on the streets, presumably because this was the equivalent of "night-time".

Kali had to make do with seeing things from out of Weaver's eyes, further limiting what she could gather information on. Which right now was the streets and densely-packed living structures that looked like they were made of a mixture of regolith-concrete, metal ship plating, and reinforcement.

Weaver's vision drifted around, moving from shadowy corner to alley to building faces, constantly analyzing and checking. A few blocks and the apartments started showing windows of business and other places on their lower levels.

On the right was a flickering sign made of those glowing yellow light-tubes bent into shapes, proclaiming the business below it a bar. Inside the dimly lit building shapes could be made out moving around, the first sign of multiple people in one place they'd found so far.

Without even waiting Weaver crossed the street and pulled the door to enter, a collection of metal fragments stringed together _tink_ -ing against each other.

Both Weaver and Kali froze.

At least half of the handful of people in the place—including the bartender—had two more arms than what a human should have, and an extra pair of eyes as well. Armor plates dotted a few of their bodies, a number having the white plastic-looking pieces on the backs of their hands, shoulders, and knees, secured in place on top of fabric wrappings. A few wore cloaks.

They were undeniably alien.

 _Fallen!_

Weaver tensed as a number of the patrons—alien and Awoken both—of the bar turned to look at who'd entered, glowing eyes landing on her for a few seconds before turning back to back to whatever had held their attention before. Weaver relaxed slightly and walked towards the bar, taking a seat on one of the rough stools that looked like they'd been formed out of plate metal.

 _What were the Fallen doing here?_

' _You didn't say there would be aliens,_ ' Weaver spoke to Kali silently.

' _I didn't know!_ ' the Ghost returned. ' _I've never even seen any Fallen that weren't hostile!_ '

The bartender moved over to them, standing at least a foot taller than Weaver, looking down at her, glowing eyes standing out stark from the dark ceiling. "What can Erkis do for you?"

The Fallen's voice was rough, a growl that rolled in odd ways over words and reminded Kali of a rock grinder.

Kali could tell her partner's mind was racing, and after a moment Weaver replied. "Surprise me."

For a moment the Fallen stared at her. "Very well."

While the Fallen moved away to the other end of the bar, Weaver took the opportunity to glance around the room. The place could have been lit by candles for how dim it was. Awoken and Fallen were mixed together, a few even sharing suspiciously quiet, whispered conversations, and Kali was starting to get the sense that this was a… less than reputable establishment.

The bartender returned, a glass in his hand that looked like it steamed, except the steam immediately fell down the sides of the glass. He put it down on the counter and moved it in front of Weaver, but when her hand reached out to take it, fingers wrapping around the base, the Fallen's lower hand on the same side was suddenly around Weaver's and Kali felt her partner instinctively tap into her Light.

"Erkis does not know why you are here, Earthborn, but you bring no trouble and we will have no problems, yes?" the Fallen growled lowly, face suddenly inches away, the glowing eye-holes in his white breathing mask staring at Weaver.

The Risen woman nodded slowly. "Good. Forty-five Glimmer," Erkis told her, and Kali dutifully materialized the amount in Weaver's pocket. The woman took it out and placed it on the bar, the blue crystalline matter quickly disappearing thanks to Erkis.

' _What can you tell me about these_ " _Fallen_ " _?_ ' Weaver asked.

' _They're nomads. Pirates and scavengers. They came to our system just after the Collapse, and started raiding outposts and settlements. The Guardians have been fighting with them ever since,_ ' Kali said. ' _They're arranged into Houses, like fleets and flotilla, each one separate and independent. They've attacked the City twice. The first was just the House of Devils, but the second was a combined attack of three Houses. Both times they were pushed back and repelled._ '

' _But why are they here?_ '

' _I don't know. Fallen usually stick to their ships and crews, I've never heard of any living in a permanent location like this, much less any that don't attack other species on sight._ '

' _And yet they seem rather comfortable, here,_ ' Weaver noted, glancing around at the number of inter-species interactions around them. ' _Or at least not hostile._ '

' _Yeah. I don't… I'm sorry, Weaver. I'm really out of my depth here,_ ' Kali said apologetically.

' _It's okay. It just means we need more information,_ ' Weaver responded. ' _Do they live here? Are they citizens? Those sorts of things._ '

' _I don't know how we'd go about finding that out without arousing suspicions,_ ' Kali returned.

' _Hmm. Could you somehow hack their systems or something and find out? I bet there's some sort of city or plane— er, asteroid-wide network,_ ' Weaver said.

' _I… maybe. Yeah. That might actually work._ '

Kali could feel Weaver grin behind her mask. ' _Good. What would you need to do that?_ '

' _Some sort of public access terminal. Maybe we could find a kiosk somewhere?_ ' Kali offered.

' _Mmm. I don't know where we'd find something like that._ '

Kali gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. ' _We could just… wander around, I guess?_ '

' _True._ '

"What is it that you seek?"

Weaver blinked, and turned to look at the Fallen that had spoken to her two seats to her left. "What?"

"What is it that you seek?" the Fallen repeated, gesturing around with their lower limbs. "None come here without a reason, without a desire to be fulfilled." The Fallen grinned behind a transparent breathing mask, their speech notably more comprehensible than the bartender's had been. "Perhaps it is something that I may… _assist_ with? For a price, of course."

Weaver's hand tightened on her glass, before she forcibly relaxed it. "Information. Knowledge."

The Fallen's eyes gleamed. "You are lucky, wanderer. If it is information, you need look no further. But what are you willing to trade for such a thing?" they asked, tilting their head.

"Glimmer," Weaver said first, and the Fallen clicked in mild acceptance. "…and information."

The alien gave a hissing laugh. "I doubt that you will have anything I do not, but I accept. Come. Let us get away from these watchers."

They stood, rising to their full seven feet of height, the motions easy and fluid. Weaver warily followed, carrying her two-thirds full glass with her as the Fallen led her further into the bar and around a corner, towards a table pressed against the wall.

Once they'd sat down, the Fallen laced their top hands together, placing them on the table. "First, we trade names. I am Marix, former huntress of that you called the 'House of Wolves'. Once I hunted to feed the servitors. Now, I hunt secrets and stories, hidden in shadows."

' _She's… female?_ ' Weaver asked.

' _Apparently,_ ' Kali answered.

Kali's partner tapped her glass for a few seconds before responding. "Weaver. I have no story."

Marix's eyes sharpened. "But you do. Lost. Stranded. Marooned. And so, so far from home. Also too trusting."

Weaver froze in shock. "How…"

The Fallen's needle-like teeth reappeared. "You do not sound like those of the Reef. You have an Earth-accent."

' _Shit,_ ' Weaver thought, and Kali had to echo the sentiment.

They hadn't even considered that. That must have been how Erkis knew as well.

Then suddenly, the predatory tension emanating from Marix was gone as she leaned back in her chair, waving a three-fingered hand. "Do not worry. It is no matter. All are equal, even if their secrets are not. And this is but a small secret in my collection."

Weaver nodded hesitantly. "Tell me about this place. The people. What are Fallen doing here?"

The grin Marix gave was practically terrifying. "I will give you this. And I will even give it for free, so that you live to see another day and do not die before any favors are repaid by offending one who would not hesitate to kill you." The female Fallen's lower right hand came up to slowly tap on the table. "Shall I tell you of the two-souls? Of the wars that were fought here and the lives that were lost, Eliksni and Awoken together? Should I tell you of the Wolves and how they now bend their knees to a Kell that is not even ' _Fallen_ ', how they have been brought into the fold of her people? Should I talk of what it is like to be scorned by all the bright-eyes, to be considered so untrustworthy as to be beneath their sight?"

"…Yes."

Marix laughed. "A strong answer. Very well."

Weaver took a drink, waiting for the one opposite her to start.

"I will start with the Scatter. Once, there was the _Mraskilaasan_ , that which you only-ever-two-arms called the House of Wolves. The Kells of the House of Kings called out, offering words of sweetness and the promise of triumph over the ones who sit beneath the Machine. Winter answered. Devils answered. And our Kell, foolish, ambitious Virixas, blinded by their false promises, decided to answer as well.

"We came, Earth-born. We followed him, followed to Ceres, _beautiful_ Ceres, restocking, regrouping to join the fight for the Machine. Then the two-soul Queen came and we rose to protect that little which we called _ours_. Such a small fleet we faced. We thought there was no way to lose." Marix gave a sharp, hissing laugh. "We learned it was only so small because they needed no more. She called her pet death-bringers. I remember the feeling of it. At the end: Virixas, dead. Ketches torn to scrap. Wolves, half dead and scattered. Ceres… destroyed."

Marix scraped her fingers across the tabletop. "We warred. Wolves and Reef. Reef and Wolves. Baroness Irxis was the first to fall, first-favored for Kell, cut down by one of Skolas' Barons, Peekis. Both fleets, lost. Peekis, docked to two arms. Baron Parixas was next, tricked to travel to Iris, caught between Awoken and the Silent Fang that had lured him there. Skolas alone remained. Skolas the Rabid. Skolas the Mad." Marix shook her head. "Less than one third of the Wolves were left. But Skolas would not stop. War, he said. Fight more, he said. Places of healing, places of learning, all burned to the ground. Civilian cities, destroyed. And then Cybele.

"He called it the 'uprising'," she said, her sibilant voice sharp like a knife. "It was no uprising. It would have been nothing but massacre. Variks of Judgment told the Crows and the Queen. Once more, she came. Skolas was captured. All his murderer-leaders, captured. Servitors, captured. With no leaders, no Barons, no Servitors, there was no Wolves. 'Come,' said the Queen. 'Come, or starve and die weak and small, hunted to the last.' Less than five thousand were all that remained of the once-great Wolves. Some ran, ran to Winter or Devils or _away_. Most bowed to the Queen. With a new Kell came new ways. Better ways, some say. There is no fighting now. No need to move at first sign of trouble. No more docking. No more two-arms. First new hatchlings born in safety in centuries, without fear of Ether-deprivation.

"Some joined the Queen's Guard, the ones that have ambition. Most?" The Fallen shrugged, an oddly human gesture from the armored alien. "Most found new things. Now there is no fighting, no duty. There is freedom, to search and find and _live_. We are not Awoken, but the Queen is our Kell.

"Still, the bright-eyes remember the wars. They remember we fought and killed them. The Awoken have a long memory. They resent us, and there is… prejudice. Many still do not trust us even after swearing to the Queen. And that, lost Weaver, is how it is now."

Weaver blinked, and Kali nearly blanked out at the influx of information.

She'd known the Fallen were fairly complex, that they had a strong social structure and developed language and tactics and technology. But _this_?

The Fallen had only ever been labeled _enemy_ in her mind. They'd been hostile ever since they'd entered the solar system, and she'd thought that was just the way they _were_. The idea of morals and an honor system, of distaste at attacking schools and hospitals, of them being anything _more_ than the antagonistic force she'd known them as, had simply never occurred to her.

And now… now she had to wonder why that was. Was it because it was easier to depersonalize them? To see them as nothing like humanity?

She didn't know.

' _Ask her why the other Houses are so aggressive. Why they seem to hate humanity,_ ' Kali told Weaver. Now that she'd been given this bit, this _hint_ of world-shaking realization, that there _could_ be peace, she wanted more, she wanted to know _why_. Why were things the way they were?

"Why are the others so eager to fight us, then?" Weaver questioned.

Marix paused for a moment, as though thinking. "…I will give this to you, since it is so rare one of you wishes to learn. But it will be the last thing you receive for free. All other questions you will pay for," Marix told her, and Weaver nodded in acceptance.

The Fallen stared at Weaver, unblinking, her head tilted slightly. "You are not the first that the machine you name the 'Traveler' has visited and lifted up."

 _What?_

"Why did you think we followed it?" Marix asked. "It did the same for the us. It came and gave us everything. But when its enemies came for it, it did not stay, like it did for you. It left, abandoning us to the things that had followed it. You call your fall the 'Collapse'. Ours was the Whirlwind, for we could only cower and watch as all we had was torn apart and destroyed. It took everything away."

The Fallen leaned back in her chair. "If it had left your system, taking with it all hopes and chances for your species to survive, would you not have followed it? Would you not fight for it, fight for the chance for your people to have a future and not die off?" Weaver swallowed. "I was born after the Whirlwind, as we traveled, following the ripples, so I do not know what it was like Before. But those that were alive then? That remember? The oldest of us are often the largest and lead us. They are obsessed, and see the Great Machine as the only chance for the Eliksni to ever be what it once was again."

For a moment, Weaver and Kali simply sat there, processing all they'd gained. It made an almost scary amount of sense and Kali had a growing feeling that everything around them was far more complex than anything she'd ever imagined. She felt so far out of her depth, but she could at least find comfort in the fact she had found her partner and would never have to go through this alone again.

"I have two questions, now," Weaver said, and Marix sat up, fore-hands back on the table. "First: Where can I access an information terminal anonymously. Second: Where would I start looking to get a ship?"

"Without any traces?" the Fallen asked, and Kali's partner nodded. "Those are small questions. One hundred glimmer for the first. Five hundred for the second. I take a risk by giving you any names such as that."

"One hundred and I'll tell you what caused that earthquake," Weaver countered.

Marix's eyes brightened. "Oh? I will be the judge of its worth, and deduct it, yes? I am fair."

Weaver paused for a moment, before opening her mouth to start. "It was a Cabal warship that crashed down a few kilometers away, manned by a rogue faction that wanted to attack the Reef. Only a hundred or so soldiers. The commander was a Valus Trau'ug."

Marix grinned. "A Cabal warship? There are many good parts on such a thing. Many good opportunities. That is _very_ good information. And only two hours old. For that, I will give you _both_ questions." From somewhere on her person she took out a data shard. "Location and access keys for secure data network terminal." A second shard came out. "Location and proof you came from me for ship contact."

Weaver picked up the shards and tucked them away in a pocket under her cloak where Kali promptly dematerialized them and started checking the data.

' _Looks good,_ ' she told her partner after a few seconds.

"Thank you," Weaver told Marix.

"Any more?" the Fallen asked.

"I don't think so," Weaver replied.

' _Kali?_ '

' _Nothing I can think of, unless you want a place to sleep, but that might be risky,_ ' she said.

' _Yeah. I can handle roughing it, especially if I never have to see red dirt around me again._ '

"Then I wish you a good night," Marix said, standing. "Do not die, Earth-born. I would not like to lose such an… _interesting_ new customer."

Weaver just nodded, watching as the alien turned around and easily slipped into the shadows, vanishing as if she'd never been there.

She looked down at the last remnants of her drink in her glass.

It was time to move on.

They had a lot to think about, anyways.

* * *

She wouldn't have noticed it were she not keeping to the darker streets, the ones that lay in the parts of the city that were less cared for and in disrepair.

She wouldn't have noticed it, and if she hadn't, it was likely their future would have been very different.

But she did.

It wasn't anything uncommon, especially for what almost seemed like a ghetto—likely for the Fallen, now that Kali thought about it. But it was enough to spur Weaver into action.

A mugging.

They heard the whimpers first, and the hissed 'give me everything you've got'. As they reached the darkened alley the sounds had come from, they could see the picture clearer: a blue-skinned man with bright purple eyes, staring down at a paler woman who had been knocked to the ground, a knife held out threatening towards her. "Don't make me say it again."

Weaver's jaw tightened and her hand clenched into a fist.

' _Weaver…_ '

Risking revealing themselves for something like this…

' _I know, Kali. But I can't. I just… This is what you brought me back for, right? To protect people?_ '

Kali sighed, but her partner had a point. ' _I understand._ '

Without waiting, Weaver strode into the alley silently. "What do you think you're doing?"

The knife shot up to point at her. "This isn't anything to do with you. _Leave_."

Weaver's mouth twisted down in a frown. "I don't think so."

She strode forward, the man's eyes hardening as he brandished the weapon threateningly. "I said _leave._ "

"And _I_ said _no_."

The woman on the ground kicked out at the man, but he noticed and stomped on her midsection, a sharp _crack_ echoing through the alley and the woman crying out as she rolled to the side.

The man's expression turned to anger as he looked back at Weaver, who had closed the gap between them. "Fine then."

He lunged, and Weaver's left arm came up in an instant, inhumanly quickly, knocking his to the side as the crackle of Arc energy surrounded her right hand.

Without a word, the fist was buried in his midsection, electricity surging through his body. The man's eyes bulged before rolling up in their sockets as he collapsed bonelessly. His knife dropped out of his hand to clang on the cement to Weaver's side, the Risen immediately stepping on it and shattering the blade beneath her heel.

She turned to the woman on the ground, crouching next to her. "Are you alright?"

The woman nodded, though the tears in her eyes told a different story. "Thank you. _Thank you_." She laboriously pushed herself up into a sitting position, and Kali could tell Weaver was floundering as she tried to figure out what to do.

' _You can heal her, you know,_ ' Kali said quietly.

' _What?_ _ **How?**_ '

' _How do you heal yourself with Solar energy?_ ' she replied.

' _I can do that with other people?_ ' Weaver asked incredulously.

' _Yeah. Here, I'll help show you how. Instead of_ _ **burning**_ _, focus on_ _ **life**_ _._ '

Weaver closed her eyes, concentrating. ' _Okay, now what?_ '

' _Gather Solar Light in your hands and put them against where she's injured._

Kali could feel the energy collect in her partner, channeled to where she'd told her.

Weaver's eyes opened, and she put her hands on the woman's lower torso.

"Hey, what are… you… doing?" the woman said, trailing off as the Light circulated through her, from Weaver to the injury and back, knitting together flesh and bone, repairing burst blood vessels.

When she felt there was nothing left to do, Kali told Weaver. The Risen pulled her hands back, and the woman prodded at her side with wide eyes. "You… how?"

Weaver shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I was just in the right place at the right time. You should forget about me."

She stood from her crouch, looking over at the downed man. Satisfied that he wouldn't be going anywhere for a good while, she turned to leave the alley.

"Hey! What's your name?" the Awoken called out, hurriedly pushing herself up from the dirty ground.

Weaver shook her head, not wasting another moment in exiting the alley and moving quickly down the street, keeping to the shadows that would hide her.

' _You did something good,_ ' Kali told her partner.

' _I know. But… that's only one person. How many people does that happen to every night? How many are hurt_ _ **worse**_ _? How many more could I help? Isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing?_ '

Kali had no answer, but she knew that night, something important had changed.


	12. Crucible

There's a number of things I like about being twice-living, about being a Lightbearer.

Being able to find myself, to find _who I am_ without the baggage that Taylor's memories brought along gave me a perspective I don't think I ever could have accepted otherwise.

First, I love challenges.

I finally had to admit and accept this five years after my resurrection when my Queen managed to twist me into taking over the Eliksni contingent of her Guard with nothing more than a few pointedly-aimed words.

Secondly, I hate losing. I _hate_ it. It was a bitter pill to swallow, finding that I had such a glaring and easily-manipulable flaw, but as far as being Risen goes, it's actually not that bad.

Because being Risen? Means you don't _have_ to give up. (…Usually.)

There's no absolute death as long as you're not totally stupid, and the ones that you do experience are often painful enough to teach you the lesson of not ever trying what caused them again. And the firepower a single Risen can bring to bear is no laughing matter.

In the twenty years of practice I had, I'd managed to get my Solar fire strong enough I could melt a city block if I truly wanted. I'd only gotten it to happen intentionally once, and it took a hell of a lot out of me, but it was possible.

So with those two things in mind, being in this Crucible, facing someone who had decades if not _centuries_ of experience on me? It was maddening.

Two teams, six people each.

It took the first two rounds just to get a hang of how the engagements flowed and how my teammates worked.

Why so long? Because I quickly learned that fighting other Risen is _nothing_ like fighting anything else.

The Hive are at least semi-careful about fights, but rush in and attempt to overwhelm if they feel backed into a corner, the thrall and acolytes fighting with fervor that could only be done by zealots. The Cabal are a military force, built on honor and working like a machine so well-crafted it doesn't even _need_ oil.

A splinter like what I'd dealt with, I learned, was very, very, _very_ rare.

Eliksni in general were scavengers, skirmishers, fighting when they felt threatened or were after some objective. _My_ Eliksni were strike teams, terrifyingly accurate and well-trained, the fifteen years I'd put them through pushing them to match the rest of the Guard's ridiculously high lethality.

But, they still fought with self-preservation as their core, something I'd beaten in to their heads to avoid any idiots from getting notions of self-sacrifice.

One's life is _sacred_ , because without it there was no way to further keep your companions from dying, to serve and be _useful_ (something I'd found was oddly offensive to the Wolves of the Guard, not being useful).

Guardians?

Guardians are idiots.

And they fought _nothing_ like the commandos I was so used to.

They're not so much idiots in the way they act or react, but the way they treat their (im)mortality.

They were so much more aggressive in obtaining objectives or pushing to gain ground it wasn't even funny.

Cayde was by _far_ the worst. Because he had the skills to back it up.

I may have had different equipment, custom weapons with exotic effects that seemed better than theirs on average, but that in _no way_ prepared me with having to fight a bunch of extremely mobile tactical _nightmares_ that were more than willing to get grievously (or even mortally) injured to get what they wanted because they could heal in seconds.

And as depressing as it is to say it, it probably showed.

I was not trained for this. Whether as the Queen's Weaver or in my previous life, I was not prepared for this sort of situation. It was like fighting a team of capes that were all Brutes and could heal in seconds, with a versatility that easily rivaled the strongest parahumans I'd encountered. Hell, most of them outshone that blue lady I'd collected, and she'd been _ruling_ her world.

The closest I could compare was fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine Thousand, except there _were_ no direct counters like we had in that fight.

I quickly realized I was not winning this. There was simply no way.

I hadn't _needed_ to accept the challenge, but I had.

And now I was paying for that.

Not that I was going to let them beat my impromptu team and I easily.

The Queen's Blade did not go down without a fight.

"Kali, prep the Shrapnel Launcher."

This was going to get _messy_.

* * *

"It was a good game."

Five to three. _Five to three._

Kali could feel Weaver's frustration.

Ugh. Well, they'd known this wouldn't be easy. They just hadn't predicted _how much so_.

Weaver stared at Cayde's extended hand warily for a moment, eyes moving up to the Exo's face and then back down, before she sighed and reached out to shake it. "Yeah."

"Hey! No need to be so down!" Without any warning, the man had swiveled around and clapped her shoulder, arm across her back. "You did pretty damn good for a rookie. Not many people could have pulled that off. Also, can I just say, that I will _never_ be able to look at a bow the same way again?"

Kali felt Weaver's lips twitch at the corners.

The bow, simultaneously one of the simplest and most sophisticated weapons they had, was something they were particularly proud of. A weapon that could channel _Light itself_. Guardians could temporarily create constructs of Light when they'd generated enough to use in a fight, but Weaver could channel hers directly through the bow in any element, making it last significantly longer. _Aurelian Fiat_ may have been a bow in a gunfight, but that didn't make it any less lethal, especially with the Light.

"I'd say the same thing about those knives you threw if I wasn't so interested in trying them myself," Weaver said, looking at her hand as a flare of Solar energy rushed down her arm and then filled out into the shape of blades held between her fingers.

Cayde pulled back to look at Weaver. "Okay, now you're just showing off."

The brunette made no attempt to hide her smirk, the blades of Light fading as she released her hold on the construct.

"But seriously, good job. I haven't been pushed like that since Ikora," Cayde said. He suddenly turned to her. "Say, do you play cards?"

Kali started cackling.

As least they'd get to make up for the loss in the Crucible by robbing the Vanguard blind.

The Queen would probably enjoy hearing that.


	13. Audience

"Hah. Hah. Hah."

' _Weaver…_ '

"What is it?" the young woman asked from where she lay on the top of the building, staring up at the ever-purple mist hanging in the sky and the stars twinkling behind it.

A burst of light bloomed into existence in front of her, Kali materializing from the subspace pocket she'd been in. "Why are we still doing this?"

Weaver stared at her Ghost, eyes scrunched in confusion even as she still panted from exertion.

"When did getting back to Earth and the Vanguard become unimportant?" she asked. "We've been here for _three months_. We aren't even trying to get back anymore, and _don't_ tell me it's 'just temporary' because we know it isn't," the Ghost said shortly, cutting Weaver off as the woman opened her mouth to refute Kali's statement.

Weaver sighed, her eyes moving away from the floating intelligence back to the stars and the sky. "I don't know."

Maybe it was when they'd found out getting a ship for outbound transit headed for Earth—if not one for themselves personally— would take at least a month, and more glimmer than they had. Maybe it was that first night when Taylor had saved and healed the Awoken woman. Maybe it was when they'd seen the prejudice and treatment of the Eliksni first-hand.

"Wasn't it what you wanted? Getting back?"

"Yes!" the brunette answered immediately, but then hesitated. "No. Maybe. I don't know, okay?" She gave a deep breath. "…Does it even matter?" she asked quietly.

"Doesn't having to skulk around like this bother you? Moving around so much? Sleeping in alleys and renting rooms from people who won't ask questions? Getting meals in places like Erkis' bar? Wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to hide and could be recognized for what you're doing? Could live off it?"

"How many people have we saved, Kali? How many muggings? How many assaults?" Weaver asked, sounding tired.

They both knew it was a rhetorical question.

"I don't care about recognition. Or money. Or comfort," she said, and looked back at her Ghost. "If I hadn't helped those people, what would have happened? _Nobody else_ tried to help them. Even when there were other people _right there_. …Fucking bystander effect," she muttered heatedly.

It seemed like another piece of Weaver's first life was showing itself.

Kali groaned to herself, floating down to rest on Weaver's hands, which were crossed over her chestplate.

"This… vigilantism isn't sustainable, Weaver. We can't do this forever. We've gotten lucky so far, but sooner or later someone is going to start asking _questions_ ," she said softly. "I'm with you no matter what you choose, but…"

But some choices just didn't work in the long run.

"I know," Weaver whispered, extracting the hand on the bottom to bring up and rest on Kali's shell.

"…I know."

* * *

It turned out it was sooner, rather than later, that their luck ran out.

"Halt!"

Weaver froze mid-step in the darkness of the alley, turning around slowly.

An Awoken woman stood in the mouth of the alley, dressed in a skintight black outfit with purple sash and a black helmet and visor that almost completely covered her face. A blue pistol was held in front of her with both hands, pointed right at Weaver's center of mass. "Raise your hands above your head."

' _Kali?_ '

' _She's one of the Queen's Guard._ '

' _Actual law enforcement then. Shit._ '

' _What do you want to do?_ '

' _Well, I'm not going to resist, if that's what you're asking._ '

Weaver was already doing as the woman had ordered. The Guard moved forward two steps, gun still trained on her. "Lace your fingers together and put your hands on your head."

Kali's partner complied, putting her hands on top of her hood. The officer's left hand came off her gun and lifted to push something on the side of her helmet.

"It's her." She paused. "Acknowledged."

She turned her attention to Weaver. "If I ask you to come with me, will you resist?"

"No," the young woman responded.

"…Will you please remove your hood?" the Guard said.

Weaver hesitated for a moment, the Guard's right hand tightening on the grip of her pistol before Kali's partner reached forward and drew her hood away.

The Guard took a half-step back. " _Human_ …?"

The fact Weaver's eyes were still glowing probably threw her off even more.

For a minute neither of them moved, the darkness and quiet of the alley seeming to become oppressive.

"Can you please lower the gun?" Weaver asked, breaking the silence.

The Guard jolted, as though she hadn't even been aware she was still pointing it at Weaver, before hurriedly holstering the pistol. "Ah. Maybe you should keep the hood up for now."

Weaver just nodded, replacing her hood.

"Follow me," the Guard said stiffly, turning around and beginning to walk towards the entrance of the alley.

Weaver trailed after her obediently. "Where are we going?"

At the mouth the Guard paused, glancing at Weaver before looking forward again.

"The Queen."

* * *

They did not go directly to the Queen.

First there was a airship to take them to the palace's city half-way across Vesta, the first small transport Weaver and Kali had been in together since Weaver's resurrection.

Then there was processing, waiting, getting screened, and more waiting.

Apparently, the Queen was a busy woman and didn't have much free room in her schedule.

They were forced to wait for three hours in a bare room barely five meters square, though it was significantly higher quality construction than what they were used to in the Eliksni ghettos and poorer areas of Serenna.

And then—only then, when it was just becoming Vesta's equivalent of 'evening'—were they finally escorted under armed guard to the throne room.

* * *

The room was large, a hall more than a chamber. Purple banners with the same crown emblem the Guards had hung from the walls, with pillars carved from glazed white rock that had black and light purple veins running through it and the floor made from the same. Starbursts of indigo-blue were embedded in the stone, pockets of amethyst that had somehow been (un)naturally formed inside the rock.

The moment Weaver laid eyes on the Awoken woman seated on the large chair— _throne_ —at the top of the tiered stone platform, she knew the Queen was not to be trifled with.

Just looking at her made her spine straighten.

Once they were within ten feet of the platform the Guards that had escorted Weaver stopped, turning and moving away to stand at the edge of the room at the walls.

The Queen and Weaver stared at each other, analyzing, measuring.

Her hair was white, not platinum, or light blond, but the color of snow, of ash. Her eyes were like flecks of glowing glacial blue ice, as cold and hard as what they resembled.

"Human."

In comparison, the pale violet undertone of her skin was unremarkable with how accustomed Weaver had become after three months of being among the Awoken.

Weaver stayed silent, the Queen's eyes locked with her own, darting between the Risen woman's own glowing irises.

At this point Kali was pretty sure she was just keeping it up to unnerve everyone else. People did not expect humans to have glowing eyes.

"And a _Lightbearer_. Tell me why we shouldn't have you struck down now for invading our realm, much less your crimes against our citizens."

"I didn't have a choice," Weaver said stubbornly. "And if helping others is a crime it'd certainly explain why no one else did."

The Queen's expression didn't change, but it felt like the air between them froze. "We can protect our own. We do not need _assistance_ from one such as you."

"I didn't do it for _you_ ," Weaver retorted. "I did it for _them_."

The Queen remained impassive. "You presume much. This is not your City. _You do not belong here,_ _ **Lightspawn**_ _._ "

"I don't 'belong' anywhere. Much less some City I've never even been to on a planet I can't even remember," Kali's partner returned hotly. "They already have enough people, from what I've been told. Why _shouldn't_ I be where I can actually make a difference and not just be another body?"

"We do not need you," the Queen restated, but her voice was less harsh than before.

Kali floated out of where she'd been resting in Weaver's cloak, unable to stay quiet any longer. "There's a crashed Cabal ship that was intended for Serenna that says otherwise. _How_ many did we save by bringing it down where we did? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Did you ever wonder why so many of the crew were dead before you got there? You may _not_ need us, but we still helped save you."

The Queen fell silent, staring at them. She took a slow breath, then stood, descending the steps until she stood less than two feet from Weaver and Kali. Her eyes never broke from Weaver's. "You…"

Her mouth pursed. "You are something quite different, aren't you?"

' _I think I should take that as a compliment,_ ' Weaver sent to Kali. ' _But I'm not entirely sure._ '

The Queen extended a hand, and Weaver had to fight to stay exactly where she was. Two fingers came up to touch her forehead, and then trailed across to her temple. The Queen's ice-blue eyes flared slightly, their glow strengthening. "So much, for nothing. So close, but not enough."

The glow subsided, and her hand dropped away. The Queen took a step back, still looking up at Weaver.

For a moment, neither moved. And then the Queen spoke. "We have decided."

Kali shifted nervously, her shell twitching.

"We give you a choice. Take a ship, go to your Last City. Become what you were intended, one among many."

"Or…?" Kali prompted when it didn't seem like she'd continue.

The Queen's eyes never wavered from their laser-like focus on Weaver's. "Join our Guard. Prove yourself to be what you say. Live up to your ideals.

"Become something _more_."


	14. Garden

KALI'S RECORD OF SHIT THAT HAPPENS WITH WEAVER  
MISSION 482  
LOCATION: MERIDIAN BAY, THAT FUCKING BALL OF RED DUST

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL TIMESTAMPS ARE ACCORDING TO LOCALTIME.

[13:07:03] Well we're here. Again. I keep hoping we'll never have to see this place again but we keep coming back. And Weaver wanted to take away her head-tumor blocker so now I have to deal with _that_ too.

There's four of us, this time. Zach and his two friends, an Exo named Halley and a rather silent Earthborn named Rigel. The extra help is definitely appreciated, for something like this.

[13:08:42] That's a really big ring. Very Vex, though, having a big ring in the middle of nowhere that leads to their secret pocket dimension.

[13:09:08] Well, they certainly didn't leave it unguarded. They've got a Hydra and everything. Giant floaty Vex platform with big guns that look like the top few segments of a centipede. And a handful Minotaurs, but those aren't too bad, just eight feet tall shielded murder robots who would like nothing more than to kill you for existing. You know, the usual. Bunch of small fries too, but they don't count anymore with how good Weaver's gotten at killing them.

[13:12:12] All the Vex are down, now to the gate.

[13:12:26] There are some _really_ freaky energy readings coming off of that thing now. Darkness stuff and everythi—

[13:12:27] Is this what time tastes like? I think this is what time tastes like.

CHRONAL REFERENCE UNAVAILABLE. GEOSAT MESH UNAVAILABLE. SWITCHING TO INTERNAL CLOCKS.  
PLEASE NOTE INTERNAL CLOCKS MAY NOT BE ACCURATE WHEN SUBJECTED TO: HIGH GRAVITY, HIGH TEMPERATURE, HIGH LIGHTBEARERS

[13:12:29] Bleh. I'm seriously not looking forward to the return trip if that's what we have to deal with.

[13:12:30] Weaver's 'passenger' freaked out from the transfer. She says she thinks it expected a dimensional shift and not a an isolated spacetime manifold.

Ugh. Sharing Weaver's head with this new thing is not fun. Well. Weaver says it was there for her first life, so technically it was there first BUT YOU KNOW WHAT.

AND NOW IT TALKS TO ME. WHAT THE FUCK.

Apparently however it communicates comes with _emotions_ , so I can't even hide and resent it when it goes all '[concern|worry| _Are you okay?_ ]' because I _know_ it's real and it means that.

It's even worse because it feels like Weaver. It feels like a part of her. Like a Ghost should be. Sometimes, I can barely tell that it's there, but it always is. Even its thoughts, its feelings feel like her. And I could never hate Weaver.

(How much did it guide her, shape her into the person my Risen is now?)

(I think I'm afraid of the answer.)

I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU, PASSENGER THING.

[13:12:32] We're enclosed in some sort of Vex stone structure, with a very obvious hallway in front of us. It almost feels like we're underground. I'm just going to note, I did _not_ sign up for tomb-raiding. …But if we are I am _so_ there.

[13:12:49] Vex!– Oh, nevermind. They're just standing there. And even have moss and stuff growing on them. It… looks like they're in some sort of stasis state, frozen. Frozen Vex. …Freeze-dried Vex?

Can you freeze-dry a Vex?

ENTRY ADDED TO "KALI'S LIST OF SHIT FOR WEAVER TO TEST"

[13:20:11] Lots of hallways. Lots of frozen Vex. Lots of grass and moss and plants. All green, too, which uh, is that even supposed to be possible without sunlight? I mean there are these weird small lights embedded in the walls but they _really_ don't seem like enough for even this much vegetation.

[13:22:20] Frozen Vex.

[13:28:28] More frozen Vex.

[13:35:35] More froze— OH SHIT NEVER MIND THOSE AREN'T FROZEN.

[13:38:47] They're dead now. Fuck, I hate jumpscares.

[13:40:23] There were more hiding around the corner. A Minotaur and a pair of Harpies. I've always thought they were kinda cute. You know, for murderous robots. They're like metal jellyfish that float sideways with this red eye that holds nothing but hate at the center, complete with a few tentacles behind them.

You know, cute.

[13:45:07] So it's pretty obvious they know we're here now. They've teleported a whole group into this room that's pretty much just like the rest of the hallway, but bigger.

[13:50:13] Aaaaand they're dead. My partner is so good at killing things!

[13:50:14] Alright and I guess these other guys aren't so bad either.

[14:06:22] There's more rooms than hallways now. And more Vex. There's a bunch of Vex. No trouble so far, though!

[14:09:31] I just _had_ to say it, didn't I? Ugh. There's not enough ambient Light anymore if I have to revive Weaver on my own. I'll either need one of the others to give me some or she'll have to self rez.

I really hate areas like this. They make me feel so useless. What's a _Ghost_ that can't even revive its _partner?_

Weaver's really good at not dying, though. I hope she doesn't. She probably won't. But I still hate it.

[14:17:48] There's stairs up ahead. And sky!

[14:19:57] Oh. Oh wow. That's pretty. It sets off _all_ my bad-warning tingles but it's still pretty. I'm gonna save a better picture of this than crappy video. Eliera will probably like it. It's like a labyrinth made of plateaus that all have grass and these black plants with red flowers growing on top of them, all extending into the distance towards a giant mesa, the entire scene lit by an aurora.

It's so pretty, but so _wrong_ at the same time.

So… Dark.

I don't like it here.

I think it hates us.

[14:42:25] We just keep moving forward. The Vex have become a constant at this point, and it's all giant adjacent rooms now. The only special thing was a Cyclops, which is like if you took a robot eye, stuck it in an upside-down triangle and turned into a fixed piece of artillery.

[14:58:38] And now they're bringing out the big guns. A Mind. Higher-grade Vex platform, this one in the shape of a Hydra, but faster, stronger, and with, well, bigger guns.

[15:06:09] We're descending down a series of stone platforms into the labyrinth now.

…I'm really glad we're not alone.

[15:10:55] This entire place is plain weird. Even constants aren't constant. The deeper into the Garden we go, the more shaky reality becomes. We're only protected because of our Light.

There's definitely more here than Vex and red flowers. The passenger might know more. I think it's been doing something, though I don't know what. _Something_ 's gotten it curious, and I can feel the interest in the back of Weaver's head.

[15:25:17] It seems when the Vex can't solve a problem with force, they turn to numbers. Great Machine, there's a lot of them.

[15:38:44] There's a big door up ahead. And behind it… I can feel something. I think the others can too. Everybody's on edge, testy. We weren't meant to be here. I feel strained in a way I've never known before, and I don't know what it is.

Everything here is wrong.

The door is closed, but there's these two things that look like Vex data points that might give some hints.

[15:46:32] Current running death tally: Halley - 3, Rigel - 2, Zachary - 2, Weaver - 0 (of course). The Vex are trying _very_ hard to stop us from getting any further.

[15:51:10] There's a conflux now. Better get to that. It seems like they realized they can't stop us now and aren't appearing any more. Probably preparing ahead on the other side, wherever this door leads.

I'm not sure I want to see what's on the other side anymore.

[15:52:16] …Go, fancy laser key!

[15:52:21] Oh. Oh fuck.

I can barely even look at it. I didn't know Ghosts could get sick before now. There's… there's a mass of Darkness. Pure, undiluted. It can't be anything else. Concentrated so much it exists in more than three dimensions, roiling and twisting in ways that burn into my memory.

I can feel it, feel it in the way our Light abhors it, stays as far away as possible. I can tell when it turns its attention to us by the way my soul screams and tries to flee.

IT HATES US.

IT WANTS OUR LIGHT.

IT WANTS TO DEVOUR US AND GRO—

[15:52:24] I can feel Weaver wrapping her Light and soul around me, protecting me. She says it's not a god, just a blighted wound in reality, with such disdain and conviction I can't do anything but believe her. To me, to my soul she says 'Don't worry. I will protect you.'

With her Light around me, I can think clearly now.

And now that I can think clearly, I understand better. This is a monster, but a crippled one.

It's trying to scare us off.

It is a broken, wounded thing, nascent and weak, and it _knows_ we can kill it.

It's _afraid._

I laugh.

[16:12:00] The fight is still going. Weaver had me get out the number two sword. To be fair, there are a _lot_ of Vex in close quarters of us. It lets the others focus on the fuckhuge Minotaur Axis Minds that are at least eight meters tall. The Heart has been throwing them at us in a childish fit to keep us away.

But no matter what it throws at us, we're going to win.

[16:21:13] The Axis Minds are dead. And the Heart—that stupid inkblot—is practically howling at us as it withers, the energy falling off it in waves, washing over us. For a moment, I thought I felt something in the energy shift before we were back on Mars, but my sensors are still all sorts of fucked up in this place.

I'm so glad we're leaving.

[16:25:34] We've said our goodbyes. They're going back to the Vanguard. We're going back to the Reef. Thank the Great Machine.

It's time to go home.

END OF FILE


	15. Home

She piloted the Seeker into the docking bay, letting the magnetic clamps grab hold before she cut main power. Transmatting outside onto the deck, she took a deep breath, the scent of metal, oil and the slight tinge of _difference_ that was always present in Vesta's atmosphere filling her senses.

Tilting her head, she looked up at the purple interstellar clouds and the bright light that emanated from inside it, a Sun too far away to heat the rock she stood on.

Home.

She felt her muscles relax, a weight she hadn't even been aware of disappearing.

' _It's nice to be back,_ ' Kali agreed.

"Welcome back, Blade. Would you like anything done with your ship?"

Weaver blinked and tilted her head back down to look at the naval yard worker. "Just general maintenance, please. Let me know if there's anything major and I'll take care of it myself. Otherwise you can just put it in storage."

The Awoken worker nodded, tapping away at the digital pad in her hands before looking back up at Weaver. "Alright, I've made note. Is that all?"

Weaver nodded. "It should be. Thank you."

The woman smiled slightly. "Just doing my job, ma'am. Have a good day."

With that, the worker turned away, moving on to the next ship, leaving Weaver standing there.

Well, nothing was going to get done like that.

She started walking towards the exit of the docks, the sounds of the workers and ships—so similar and yet so different from the docks she knew from her first life—filling the air around her.

It was nice having people treat her well, even if she didn't interact with a great deal of Awoken outside the members of the Guard, the general populace, and the handful of friends she'd made over the years.

…And Eliera, but that was a whole different matter.

Weaver transitioned from the open naval yard to the hallways and offices, moving through the building until she emerged onto the streets of Merina. It was a city of metal and stone, and the seat of the Awoken government.

She walked through the streets, heading towards the towering main spire at the center of the city, returning some of the nods and greetings she got along the way.

It was rather easy to recognize the _only human in the entire Reef_ , after all.

She was pretty sure just about everyone knew her, even if just from notoriety. That's not to say everybody liked her, far from it. She'd received her fair share of assassination attempts and prejudiced racism just for being human and 'having the gall to stand at our Queen's side.' Still, that was a relatively small minority, and everybody else seemed willing to happily accept her, or if not that, at least _tolerate_ her. It _had_ been twenty years after all, she wasn't exactly new or anything.

Still, on the other side, it seemed she was also rather… popular in her own way. She was sure the novelty of her race was part of it. Weaver grimaced, remembering the ceremony where she'd been awarded her title. There had been a _surprising_ number of attendees, not to mention it was broadcast publicly to the rest of the Reef.

It was rather ironic, considering how she'd gained recognition and her position in her last life, actually, even if she _had_ gone straight in the end. Those first few months as Skitter still felt almost… more defining, in a way, than her time as Weaver in the Chicago Wards. Weaver had been the end result, but _Skitter_ had been how she'd discovered herself.

Here, though, she'd always been Weaver. A different Weaver, for certain, but she'd only had one persona, one face, not experiencing the… division the way Taylor, Skitter, Weaver (and Khepri, part of her whispered) had.

It was simpler, and honestly she by far preferred it. She didn't have to hide parts of herself, or act to be more "villainous" or "heroic", she could just _be_.

It was something that had led her and rewarded her with where she was now, to being the Queen's left hand herself, the blade held behind her back even with a hand put forward.

Maybe in her past life she would have chafed at the idea of being subordinate like this (especially at the end, with the way her thoughts had been), but here she knew she was in the best place she could be. She didn't have to bear the responsibilities that came with total leadership, she didn't have to worry (too much) about those she did lead.

She didn't have to be _in control_.

It was peace in a way she'd never truly had in her past life.

She wasn't just satisfied, she had _happiness_ , something she couldn't remember having since her mother's death.

Maybe, maybe if she'd taken a path similar to this in her first life, she wouldn't have had so many regrets at the end. She wouldn't have wanted to do so many things differently.

But this life _was_ different.

Here, she had everything she could have wanted and some she hadn't even imagined possible.

And that? That was more than enough.

* * *

«Welcome back, Captain.»

Weaver ran a hand over her face, rubbing at her eyes. The trip back had taken more of a toll on her than she'd originally thought. «It's good to be back, Red.»

Rediraksis, probably one of the longest-named Eliksni Weaver had ever met, fell into step beside her as she moved towards the Queen's working wing. The throne-room was only really ever used when she needed to make a statement. And as far as she knew, there wasn't a need right now.

«Any news? Anything worth note?»

«No, Captain,» he replied.

«And our Queen?»

«Marakel stays strong.»

Some of the tension in Weaver's shoulders disappeared, muscles relaxing.

«Well that's good, at least. How're you doing, Red?»

The Eliksni gave a throaty chuckle. «I am well, Captain. Veraxis has finished repairing Kaliks-8 and the ether is flowing freer now.»

Weaver eyed him. «Oh? Should I expect you to gain back that height you lost from the rations?»

Red looked over at her, and she had the distinct feeling that if he didn't have his mask on he'd be grinning. «I will be tall once more.»

The dark-haired Risen grinned. «Good, it's been weird having you guys eye-level with me.»

«We agree, Little Captain.»

Weaver groaned. «Not you too. I get enough from the inmates. How did you even hear about that?» She bit her lip. «It was Variks, wasn't it?»

Her companion was silent, and she took that as all the confirmation she needed.

«I just know this is payback for beating him so badly at cards last month.»

Rediraksis laughed behind his mask, hissing. «Variks of House Judgement should have learned not to play against the Captain.»

«Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure he has _now_ ,» Weaver countered. «Let me know if there's anything happening tomorrow night. I haven't had a good drink since I left; the City-dwellers had nothing good.»

She shook her head.

«At least the company wasn't terrible.»

They slowed as they drew up towards the large open entrance on the side of the hall that had two Feliks posted to the sides of it, the pair straightening and resting the hafts of their arc-spears on the floor.

««Captain,»» they both greeted, and Weaver nodded at them.

«Erahk, Meksis. Well met.»

By now, Weaver and Kali could both recognize every single Eliksni that worked in the Guard by just by appearance and voice. The only other who could likely claim the same was the Prince, most of the others in the Queen's Guard not bothering to get to know the ones they didn't work with.

Of course, being given unofficial command of the entire Eliksni portion of the guard meant that—as the equivalent of a Baroness—Weaver had the duty to know her 'crew'.

Weaver had always been just as at ease with the insect-like Eliksni as she had with Awoken, and both she and her Ghost had wondered more than once if that had been carried over from her first life. Now of course, they both knew about previous control over insects, how they'd become her closest companions, to the point she'd been more comfortable with them than other humans.

Now, things made sense.

Where others were repulsed by the alien, insectoid anatomy of the Eliksni, Weaver didn't even acknowledge it as unusual, finding it more interesting than anything.

The Queen had noticed, of course. Which had led to Weaver's position-in-all-but-name. The lone Baron of the Mraskilaasan—the 'gentle weavers'. And of course, the Eliksni in the Guard had practically taken Weaver's name as a sign she was meant to be a part of the Wolves.

«I'll see you later, Red?» Weaver asked, looking towards the male at her side.

«Yes. But now I must find Sarask,» he told her, giving a short bow of his head. «Good day, Captain, Kalii.»

Weaver just raised as hand in his direction as he walked away, turning back to the posted guards.

«Is she in a good mood?»

The Eliksni looked at each other for a moment. «Marakel appears satisfied.»

"I _can_ hear you out there, Weaver."

Kali's Risen froze with a grimace, before steeling herself and walking forward.

"Good day, my Lady."

The Queen looked up from where she lounged on a couch, holographic data-scroll in her hands, a pile of them to her side on a table. "The Heart?"

"Destroyed. They probably could have done it on their own, with effort," Weaver acknowledged.

Mara hummed and tilted her head slightly, the scroll going onto the table as she rose and drifted towards Weaver.

"Something has changed, hasn't it?" The Queen drew up close to Weaver, the effect of her piercing eyes undiminished by the nearly fifteen centimeters difference Weaver had on her in height. "You've regained something. You've found what was missing all these years, haven't you? The thing that made you feel so incomplete."

Weaver nodded as the Queen reached out to pluck at the golden-wire strands of Light playing around her head in the outline of a simple helmet.

"Tell me."

"I…" Weaver took a breath, letting it out slowly. "I've regained the memories of my first life. And a power I held then that doesn't come from the Sky or the Deep."

The Queen's eyebrows rose. "Truly? And who were you, in your past?"

Weaver gave a sad, thin smile. "A warrior. A fighter. Someone who only wanted to help and protect but kept getting caught up in things larger than myself."

' _Not too different from now, really,_ ' Kali commented wryly to Weaver, who laughed silently.

Mara Sov nodded in acceptance, turning back towards the couch and seating herself, before gesturing at the one on the opposite side of the scroll-covered table. Weaver took a seat. "There is time, so perhaps, you should tell this from where it should start: the beginning."

Weaver settled, and Kali could feel the way her mind started ordering things, preparing to tell her story.

"My name was Taylor Hebert. I was born in 1995, and when I was twelve, my mother died in a car accident…"

* * *

She'd spent nearly three hours telling her story to the Queen, who not once had paid her anything less than her full attention, even disallowing outside interruptions. There hadn't been time to tell everything, so she'd focused on the important events.

"The last thing I remember is Contessa putting two bullets through my head and falling. The next thing after that was waking up in the middle of the sands of Mars when Kali brought me back," Weaver concluded.

The Queen sat back. "Alternate worlds…" she mused. "And you even had contact with them."

"…Alternate universes would probably be more accurate," Weaver said.

For a moment, the Queen looked at her sharply, the full intensity of her presence focused on Weaver. And then she closed her eyes and breathed, and the moment was gone. "Yes, I suppose so."

Weaver nodded. "I'd like to request a set of the Techeun's neural implants to assist me with managing my power if possible."

Mara stared at her, evaluating.

"…Release it."

Weaver recoiled, blinking. "I-I'm sorry?"

"Your barrier, release it," Mara repeated, gesturing at the ephemeral helmet.

"…B-but, my Queen," Weaver protested.

"I will not repeat myself again, Weaver. _Release it,_ " Mara ordered. "If you are so hesitant then replace it after one minute, but I have doubt that will be an issue."

The Risen woman took a shuddering breath. "Yes, ma'am."

And then she tore away the division.

Everything fell back into place, and Weaver could only barely restrain the content sigh of _being whole again_. She—no, her passenger—felt slightly anxious and annoyed, like when she'd had to manage her territory and one of her lieutenants was late checking in.

' _Sorry. I told you I didn't know how long._ '

Begrudging acceptance, now.

Her attention turned to those in her range: first snapping almost involuntarily to the _newness_ she could feel at the edge of her range. She couldn't tell whether it was she or her passenger who examined them excitedly, like a child looking at and turning over a new toy on Christmas.

There were two, simultaneously familiar and not, so similar but also so complex and different from the insects she'd once known so well, their surprise at her hold affecting them in different ways than she knew. It took a minute to familiarize herself with them, keeping them breathing even as she felt the masks on her faces, looked out of the four eyes that saw colors she wasn't used to, re-familiarized herself with the sense of six limbs even though she stood upright on two.

So this was what it was like to be Fallen.

Only one of the Awoken guards was inside her range in the room, but that wasn't unusual, in fact she seemed rather bland in comparison to the Eliksni, especially considering the familiar fear she felt. Weaver remembered controlling civilians in the beginning of the fight, moving them between worlds, and this woman felt no different, though there was the _hint_ of something different there, lying in the depths. Barely any, but still noticeable.

Her Queen though.

Her _Queen_.

She knew she was there but her control found no purchase. It wasn't like Glaistig Uaine, where she could tell the control was offloaded to one of the Ghosts. It wasn't like the way some had resisted, fighting her control but always inevitably losing to her will. It wasn't quite like the Guardians either, their minds operating on a hybrid substrate of Light and the material, defying logic in a way her passenger couldn't comprehend and thus couldn't manipulate.

No, it was like she'd reached out and found frictionless glass, an impenetrable bubble. She could look, but was powerless to do anything else. And within the bubble was something that reminded her of a rotating black hole: absolute darkness and blindingly relativistic light, joined and moving in harmony.

She couldn't have looked away even if she'd wanted.

"Wha-what _are_ you?"

The Queen's eyebrows raised slightly, before the mild surprise vanished just as fast. "I will admit I didn't expect you to find anything at all. I suppose I should have learned to stop being surprised by your ability to exceed expectations by now." She paused. "Still…"

A delicate hand reached out, almost thoughtlessly, towards Weaver, the Queen's eyes flaring. "Hm. It is physical, but not. Exposed here, but drawing from… _elsewhere_."

Weaver would have sworn she could feel a touch that drifted upon something she had no ability to describe and hadn't even been consciously aware of before now. A finger twitched and it felt like there were suddenly _harmonics_ in her mind, like the Simurgh's song but only one note, yet still layered up and down. She shuddered slightly against her will.

"And the augment?" Weaver asked, still recovering slightly from the shiver that had gone down her spine, from the note that felt like it had touched her _soul_. "Will they help?"

The Queen's hand fell. "Yes, I think they would fit quite well and be appropriate; there are more similarities than differences, at least in form. Though those differences are something to be aware of."

Weaver nodded.

Mara gestured at her. "You may replace the barrier, now."

She didn't _want_ to though, this was how she was _supposed_ to be why did she have to—

Weaver clamped down. ' _Stop that._ '

' _Fiiiiine,_ ' a younger Taylor's voice whined, simultaneously trying to sound serious—a memory of a response to her parents. ' _But I want you to know I'm not happy about it!_ '

' _Only for a little longer._ '

With a _twist_ of her Light, she imprinted the now-familiar pattern onto reality, anchoring it on her head, and the connection to her passenger was gone, leaving her feeling bereft and slightly empty.

As soon as she did, the Awoken woman who had been within in her range stumbled, but recovered. At the same time, the two Eliksni who had been guarding the door rushed in, pikes at the ready.

«Stand down, guys. It was just me. Sorry I didn't warn you, but the Queen wanted me to demonstrate something,» Weaver said, motioning with her hands to lower the pikes. «I'll explain more in the barracks later, but it shouldn't happen again now. You can return to your posts.»

«Yes, Captain,» Erahk responded, both of them returning their pikes to resting position and moving back out the door.

Weaver turned back to the Queen, whose eyes flicked over her once more, examining. "I will inform Sedia. You should only need those for your mind rather than your entire body, as your ' _power_ ' does not need to channel energy outwards."

Well, she was glad she wasn't going to be "glittering like a jewel" anytime soon. At least, that was how the stories described what the Techeuns looked like under their robes. Not that Weaver had ever _seen_ that since they never wore anything that didn't cover their whole bodies. But if that was unnecessary for her, all the better.

"…I rather think that being Lightborn allows you to do enough of that already," the Queen continued flatly.

A joke.

Weaver wanted to shake her head in exasperation. Just when she thought she was getting a hold on the conversation, Mara would somehow throw her off. It always happened.

"And, since we are on the topic of Lightborn, what did you think of your peers? What do you think, now that you've seen their City?" the Queen smoothly segued.

Weaver frowned. "…It doesn't suit me."

"Oh?"

"Maybe twenty years ago, if I'd had my memories as Taylor, I could have adjusted. But now…" She shook her head. "The Reef is my home. You know this."

"I do," the Queen said, not unkindly. "But still, I ask for your thoughts."

The Risen woman sighed. "It was utter chaos. We knew of the Vanguard, but within it the Risen are separated into divisions based on… ideology? Abilities? How their Light first manifests? I didn't entirely understand that. There is a degree of recklessness that is almost… expected. A not-insignificant portion don't even interact with the common people, remaining in the Tower entirely," Weaver said. "If anything, my Queen, my time there only reinforced my resolve. I have seen the other side and _found it wanting_."

Mara took a deep breath and nodded. "Do you know why I offered you a position on my guard, all those years ago? Why I have treated you as I have any other Awoken rising through the ranks despite the reactions and jealousy of the others? Why I ordered the others to do the same? Did you not find it unusual, considering there are no other humans in the Reef and our policies on the Risen?"

Weaver swallowed. "I… will admit I wondered. But in the end I decided that the reason didn't matter, only that you gave me the opportunity to prove myself and learn where you could have just as easily rejected or killed me."

Mara's expression softened. "I saw something, that day. An indelible impression not even death or the Sky could wipe clean. A strength that many could never even comprehend, and a resolve to match. A potential to become something more than just another Lightbearer."

The Risen nodded, looking down at her hands.

"I gave you that chance not knowing what would come of it. And yet in twenty short years, you have proven yourself time and time again, and I would have you nowhere else."

A sense of pride rose inside her, even as the Queen's mask fell back into place.

"So go, Twice-born Weaver, and know that this is only the beginning."

* * *

 **A/N:** [cackling intensifies]

No but seriously now the real story starts.


	16. Typical

Weaver sighed, blinking tiredly as she sent the last of the reports she'd had waiting for her off to the archive department. It had taken more hours than she'd liked sitting in one place, but she was finally done. Unfortunately, it was late enough that everybody _sane_ was probably asleep by now, so that briefing she'd wanted to give her Wolves was going to have to wait until tomorrow.

With one last look around the space that was her "office", she turned off the lights and locked the door, heading to the elevators to take the trip down the length of the Spire that was the primary Awoken government and military building. She didn't even use this office very much, it being more a political and bureaucratic location, but it was where all the items her secretary couldn't handle had been directed.

Walking through the streets of Merina was starkly different without all the people out, but she followed the winding, long path back to her apartment on the inner edge of the unofficial Eliksni section of the city.

At first she'd lived there because it was the only area that she could find a place that wouldn't give her a hard time. After receiving her official commission and then (later) her title, she'd stayed because she preferred living among the families of her House, her crew. She wasn't just another Awoken lording over them but one of them, an outcast who had proven herself, and it let them know that she remembered those who had helped her when she'd needed it and didn't forget where she'd started.

…It also kept the crime down, knowing there was a Lightbearer just _waiting_ for someone to make a wrong step in what was ostensibly _her_ territory.

She'd never understood why she felt so at home like that, so comfortable among the disadvantaged, why she felt so strongly about staying with them, but now she remembered her time as a warlord, with her gang, her people.

She was so different and yet not from Taylor.

The area looked nicer now than it had twenty years ago when it had been practically a ghetto. Partly due to her own efforts in getting support for the area and partly thanks to her Queen telling her to do as she wished with it.

She had a feeling her Queen knew just how grateful she was for that, even if Weaver had only thanked her once.

The Risen woman walked up the curving stairs to the second floor of her building, the substantially nicer apartment she had now a far cry from what she'd first had.

The door was silent as it slid open and then closed behind her, and Weaver dismissed her boots with a thought as she stepped past the foyer.

Not bothering to turn on the lights, she navigated through dark towards her bedroom, through the archways in the walls that were in place of any doors. She hadn't seen the point.

With another thought her armor and uniform disappeared leaving her in her underwear, the Light construct around her head remaining in consideration for the people who lived in the apartments around her.

She moved with single-minded focus towards her bed ( _her_ bed, not the Tower's!), slumping onto it without prelude and rolling onto her back…

Only to sandwich a hand between her spine and the mattress.

"Mmmm… Weaver?"

"Eliera?" A pair of bright yellow eyes blinked open drowsily next to her. "What're you doing here?" she asked tiredly.

The eyes closed again and the hand was extracted before reaching over Weaver to attach to her side and pull her closer. "Waiting for you to get back."

"How'd you know when I was getting in?" Weaver asked. "…Or have you been staying here all week?"

A body snuggled into Weaver's side, a head coming to rest next to her shoulder and a nose against her arm. "Guilty." A warm breath blew across her skin. "Sleep now. Talk later."

Weaver hummed in agreement. "'Night, El."

"'Night."

The Risen woman turned into the head of soft hair at her side, inhaling and letting herself drift off into her dreams.

* * *

At six-o'clock sharp Weaver's eyes opened. Blinking a few times, she looked down at the head of night's-sky-blue hair on her chest and the pale blue skin beyond it, watching the faint patterns of light that shifted and danced cross across it like the reflections from a pool of water.

After a moment, she started extricating herself from the tangle of limbs originating from an extremely tactile Awoken woman, eventually managing to lever herself out and towards the bathroom.

When she'd done her business and cleaned up, she migrated to the kitchen, rummaging around to see what she had, Kali materializing into existence next to her.

"Morning Kali."

The Ghost's shell pulsed happily. "Good morning, Weaver!"

Weaver blinked. "You seem to be in a good mood this morning," she noted. It was a strong contrast to how uncharacteristically quiet and almost… brooding, the Ghost had been the past few days.

The Ghost's shell rippled, black edges and points flaring up before laying flat again, and Weaver felt an echo of guilt from her partner.

"It's nice to see you so happy," Weaver said, not forcing Kali to respond. Weaver started pulling out ingredients, amused to see she had everything she needed for something she'd loved as Taylor, but hadn't even heard of in the Reef. "What do we have to do today? Meet with the Captains, for certain. Making the rounds so people know we're back, though scuttlebutt has probably gotten that around already."

"We have a review scheduled after lunch for the Servitor rebuilds," Kali told her.

"Right. I'm glad they got another of the Kaliks series back up. That'll at least ease some of the load on the others. If we could just get _one_ of the Orbiks working then we could rely on it to organize the others and wouldn't have to worry about micromanaging the Kaliks units we have so much. Remind me to talk to Keldar about that project he's working on."

"About somehow rebuilding a Prime?" Kali asked, and Weaver nodded as she started mixing ingredients. Some were synthetic compared to what had been natural in her old life, but they were ultimately the same.

"He's got some interesting ideas. And the next-most realistic possibility is using parts from lesser Servitors, but we don't have any to _spare_ ," she said.

Servitors were the life and blood of the Eliksni, sentient (and sometimes _sapient_ , in the case of the larger ones) spherical robots patterned after the Great Machine that processed matter and turned it into Ether, which was necessary for Fallen to live. The Servitors allowed the Eliksni to expand beyond their home planet—and any that had been terraformed to match—as it had produced Ether naturally.

Without Servitors, the Eliksni couldn't survive. As it was, there was barely enough Ether to go around. Weaver had been told that the gigantic size that Kells and Archons achieved was in fact the size Eliksni were _supposed_ to be, but the scarcity of Ether didn't allow them to get so large. Fallen would grow and shrink according to how much Ether they were rationed as part of their rank, which was why the repair of Kaliks-8 would mean her Wolves should return to their usual (still small) size with the rations going back to normal.

Prime Servitors were the largest and most important for a House, and the Wolves… didn't have one. It had disappeared after the Reef Wars. The Wolves were surviving right now, without it, but they weren't _thriving_. There was barely any room for population growth, because the situation was so tenuous, even if nobody was starving.

"Oh! Sedia just sent us a message saying that she can set aside time to see you today if you'd like?"

"Yes, please," Weaver said, holding her hand over the pan she had on the burner to see if it was hot enough. Satisfied, she started combining the last ingredients before moving them to the pan and to cook.

"Alright, I sent her a reply suggesting after the Servitor review," Kali told her, and Weaver nodded, paying attention to the food. "Anything else in mind?"

"I want to dig around and see if there's any power sources in the tech storerooms we could use for Silence. It's practically done besides that, so I want to finish it up as soon as possible," Weaver said.

"Still not sure what it's going to do?" Kali asked, and the Risen woman gave her a flat look.

"It's a _laser_. I know _exactly_ what it's going to do. Destroy things. I'm just not entirely sure about everything… _else_. There's just bound to be some weird effects it has considering it's my first try at what's basically a hand-held continuous-beam _laser rifle_ and I was mostly going off gut feelings and instinct for a good chunk of the beam generator and emitter."

Weaver shook her head. "We'll figure it out when we run it through testing. At least we know it won't explode thanks to all the energy calculations." Looking back towards the bedroom, she yelled over her shoulder, "El! Breakfast if you want it!"

Thirty seconds later the Awoken woman emerged from the bedroom blinking the last of her sleep from her yellow eyes before sitting down at the counter.

Weaver finished pulling the pieces she'd had in the pan off and onto a plate, putting the plate in front of the other woman.

Eliera picked up her fork and poked at the squares on her plate. "And what's this supposed to be?"

"If you don't want it, _I'll_ eat it," Weaver told her.

The blue-skinned woman looked between her and the food, wide-eyed, "No that's fine!" she said hurriedly, picking up her knife and cutting into it before shoving a piece in her mouth.

"And to answer your question, it's French toast," the Risen said, finishing making her own plate, and moving the pan away from the hot burner before walking over to stand across from Eliera. "Normally you'd put maple syrup on it, but we don't have any in the Reef, so the next best thing is butter and/or jam."

She pushed what was effectively the strawberry jam over to the woman, having finished spreading some over her own breakfast.

"How d'you know how to make it?"

"I've… remembered my first life," Weaver told her.

Yellow eyes widened. "You can _do_ that?"

Weaver shook her head. "I'm a special case."

For a moment Eliera's face fell slightly—and if Weaver hadn't known her as well as she did, she wouldn't have caught it—and then the Awoken woman laughed. "Well, we already knew _that_."

The Risen woman rolled her eyes with a smile.

"So… anything exciting you remember? Considering what you're like now, you must've been a superhero or something," Eliera said.

Weaver froze, and El looked at her, studying her for a moment. " _…No way._ Seriously? I was just kidding!"

The Lightbearer looked away as Eliera started laughing.

"If you keep laughing I won't tell you _anything_ ," Weaver said flatly.

"What? Noooo. I'm sorry Ms. Baroness Queen's Blade Weaver—" Eliera broke off into giggling as Weaver shoved her shoulder.

"Shut up and eat your French toast."

Eliera pointedly stuck a piece in her mouth as she looked at Weaver.

Weaver sighed, exasperated. "Anyways, _yes_. As you so bluntly put it, I _was_ what one might call a 'superhero'."

Eliera grinned and opened her mouth to say something, but Weaver cut her off. "I was also a villain."

Whatever she'd been about to say was gone, and instead Eliera said, " _You?_ Ms. helps-people-cross-the-street? Ms. will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-complete-the-mission?"

"That was actually the problem. I got involved with a group of villains thinking I'd turn them in, but ended up getting caught up in everything and never got a break, never backed down, to the point I was basically running the city. I wasn't a _bad_ villain, I was always trying to help other people, but I felt like the system was too restrictive to work within," Weaver said. "Eventually I got trapped in a situation with no easy way out, and ended up being forced to join the Protectorate, which was our country's official organization for parahumans. Weaver was actually what I went by with them, and being a cape became pretty much my entire life. By the end I think I identified more with that than I did my birth name, which is why it was what I remembered as my name."

"Huh."

"'Huh'? That's all you have to say to that?" Weaver said incredulously.

Eliera shrugged as she chewed another bite. "I mean, when you put it like that I can kinda see it. But even then you're not her, right? Risen are always almost completely different than what they were like in their first life, or at least that's what people say."

Weaver nodded. "I'm definitely not the same. I might have once been her, but I'm not now. I'm not that person. I can see the same bits and pieces, the same tendencies and emotions, but they're part of a new shape."

Eliera hummed. "Well that's enlightening. Suddenly your unnatural obsession with color-coordinated personalized armor makes sense."

Weaver gave her a flat look. "I am _not_ obsessed with my armor. And if you think _I'm_ bad you should have met Glenn, the guy who was head of PR for the entire organization."

"And the giant shoulder pads from the uniform just don't really work for you," Eliera added. "Though I _do_ wish I got to see you in that skin-tight leather more often," she said with a sly smile.

Weaver flushed slightly. "Maybe later. I've got work."

"You've _always_ got work!" El countered.

She wasn't wrong.

"Yes. It's what lets me make food like this and pay rent," Weaver said as she stood and put her empty plate in the sink. "Speaking of which, you're on clean-up. Ready Kali?"

"Yep!" the Ghost chirped at the same time Eliera sung out. "Alright~"

The Risen woman moved around the peninsula towards the front door, materializing her boots once she was in the entryway.

"See you, Weaver!"

"Bye, El," she replied as she opened the door and stepped through it. Just as she was about to close it, she stopped and looked back. "Oh, and I'm going to be getting the Techeun augments sometime this week."

And then she closed the door and headed towards the stairs.

Behind her in the apartment, a golden-eyed Awoken woman sat stunned, before recovering.

"Wait, what? Weaver? Weaver!" Eliera called out. "You can't just say something like that and then leave!"

But she'd already walked away.

* * *

Weaver stared at the large spherical cradle and the metal skeletal frame that occupied it inside the hangar.

The meeting earlier with her Captains had gone well, mostly just a review of what had happened in her absence, how training for the few new Eliksni they'd gained in the last few months was going–which she personally took a hand in when she had the time–and what the status of any ongoing repairs or refits for ships was. Whenever Variks showed up she got a report on the Prison, but since he hadn't she'd probably have to go out to it herself, and probably do an inspection at the same time.

She had no doubt the inmates would enjoy that.

She'd also preemptively warned them of the implants she'd likely be getting, as she knew how they were uncomfortable about the Techeuns, though in general they were fairly accepting of cybernetic implants and prosthetics.

Refocusing on the surroundings, she looked over at the Eliksni standing next to her.

«And you truly believe you can recreate Orbiks Prime?» Weaver asked. «I'm not doubting your abilities, merely the feasibility of such a project.»

The Captain at her side shifted. «Yes, Captain. If we have the materials, I believe that this is possible. I have studied the Servitors for many, many cycles.»

«Well, alright then. What you've shown me so far is promising, so I'm giving you permission to get whatever materials and people you need for this. I'll have a formal approval filed this afternoon, with the glimmer and shards coming out of the R&D budget, which I feel is appropriate for a project like this.»

«Thank you, Weaver-K— _Captain_ ,» Keldar replied.

«Of course. I understand how important this is to the House. Finally having a Prime will ease a lot of the pressure we currently face. What do the others think of this?»

«Some do not believe. Others, have hope. As you say, it will be good to have a Prime again,» he told her.

She nodded. «Good luck. I will check in with your progress in… say, two weeks?»

Keldar just signaled acceptance, and Weaver turned to leave the hangar.

' _Well, that's good news at least,_ ' she sent Kali. ' _Now for Sedia._ '

' _Now for the weird techno-priestess,_ ' Kali agreed. ' _How much you want to bet she's going to ask you to take down your barrier?_ '

' _That's a fool's bet and you know it,_ ' Weaver replied.

She'd would be lying if she wasn't at least a little apprehensive of meeting with the Techeun. What with the uh, _reputation_ they acquired. From what she'd heard the description of _Witches_ might not be so far off the mark. More Macbeth witches than Harry Potter, but still.

Isolationist women with mysterious supernatural abilities who could divine the threads of Fate.

Also her Eliksni really did not like them at all.

So yeah, _Witches_.

Thankfully at least one of them was never too far from the Queen, so it made Weaver's life easier, not having to fly out to another outpost or something.

Weaver made her way from the hangars and complexes of her Fallen until she once more was recognizably in Merina. From there she made her way towards the Spire, but instead of taking an elevator up–as she would to get to her office–she took one _down_ , into the levels below the surface.

Once she got to the right level, she stepped off and made her way through the hallways towards wherever Sedia would be meeting her.

…Which turned out to be an oddly normal-ish room with pair of chairs and a table in it, the Techeun already sitting and working with a datapad. Though the room _did_ have more digital interfaces around the room than was typical, as well as slate-grey and blue stone panels on the walls that probably served some unknown function.

Sedia was covered to a degree that the only the skin of her hands and a section from her nose to her neck were visible, not even her eyes standing out. Her head lifted up, and that was the only sign Weaver had that her attention had shifted.

"Hello Blade. You have need of the Techeuns?" Sedia asked, her voice calm and oddly natural for what Weaver had heard of them before.

"More… something you make use of than your services, really," Weaver replied. "The augmentations that help you control your powers. So in a roundabout way I suppose, yeah."

"Hm. Yes. Our Queen mentioned as much. That we should provide you with what you may need to rein a psychic ability. It is unprecedented that one not of the Techeun Order would receive–or even need–such a thing …almost as unprecedented as a human Lightbearer becoming our Queen's personal weapon, one could say. But it is not our place to question our Queen, merely follow her command," Sedia told her.

Weaver didn't respond.

Sedia looked back down at the datapad. "Could you please describe what your… power is like? The Queen has already provided us with some details, but it would be best to hold the whole picture to understand what is needed. It is psychic in nature, correct?"

"I… guess you could say that?" It was uncomfortable to consider, since the only thing that was truly considered _psychic_ in Taylor's world was the Simurgh. But… that didn't make it any less true, considering what her power had been like, at the end. What it was like, _now_. "The simplest way to describe it would be control. Within a certain range, I control living things. I see what they see, hear what they hear, everything. But… it's also more than that." And this was what made the 'psychic' thing so true. "I'm _inside_ them. I can feel their emotions, their thoughts, their memories, except it's separated by one degree, put into the context of my own memories so that I can understand it. Like having a conversation using an interpreter."

And that wasn't so wrong, was it? Her passenger had been that interpreter, and was only able to draw on what _it_ knew as well to understand things, and the thing it knew best was her.

"Maybe with time, practice, I could have figured out how to remove that requirement, had access to everything directly, but there wasn't exactly time and I was rather… focused on the task at hand."

Also extremely hobbled and incapable of understanding normal communication at _all_ by then. Contessa was the only one who managed it and that was with her do-anything power. Decoding other peoples' thoughts and memories would have been far beyond her.

She had been well and truly broken at the end.

Sedia nodded. "The Queen said that it is the result of an innate connection you have? Rooted physically but with metaphysical resonance."

Resonance?

More like there was no separation. During Gold Morning she and her passenger had been a tangled medley thrown in a blender and set to 'puree'. Their roles had merged and become so conflated and confused that she'd been relying on it to move her body even as she commanded it like a puppeteer. To speak for her even as she had the base thoughts, which were mixed up with its impulses.

Now at least, with the Light, they were more easily distinguished. Her mind no longer relied just on physical brain matter, and there was none of the agnosia or dissociation that had plagued her before.

But still, all walls between them had been torn down. "Resonance" didn't even begin to explain it.

"There's this extra cortex in my brain, essentially. That's where it's based," Weaver said simply. "The connection, that is. Messing with it messes with my powers. Originally I had a much wider range, but I could only control simpler organisms. There was a life-or-death situation and I had someone change my brain to give me _more_ , and that's why it's the way it is now."

Sedia nodded, making notes on her tablet. "Any augments involved will be solely focused on your mental abilities as per the Queen's orders, and will thus be restricted to your central nervous system."

What she'd expected, then.

"Would you be willing to disable the suppression so I can receive a baseline reading of your neurology and what the effect is currently like?"

"Do we need to go somewhere for that?" Weaver asked.

"No, this room is normally used to collect information on phenomena, so it will suffice," Sedia said. "One minute should be enough. If you are ready now?"

Weaver blinked. Well, okay then.

For the second time in as many days, she tore away her division and felt relief that both was and wasn't hers.

There was only one thing within her range, and her control felt… fuzzy for a moment, before it suddenly snapped into place.

It was so _complex_ , and she felt both surprise and intimidated awe, coming through as the memory of the moment Alexandria had appeared at the PRT building when Skitter had been outed.

Weaver could feel a hum around and within Sedia, a power that was so innately _hers_ and different from the capes she'd held before. It was a harmonious meld that was balanced precariously, and without that balance there would be nothing all. She could feel the augments embedded in the skin and awareness both, the sharpness and strength they gave her, like raw steel honed into a razor's edge, the flexibility they gave to her abilities in a way she'd never have naturally, the way the power within her moved and flowed, a raging river directed with intentional efficiency by the implants.

She could feel her own presence through the Techeun, and wasn't that a weird sensation? The telekinesis she held was nothing new, but the telepathy? With a _flex_ she could read her own thoughts while reading her own thoughts in an endless loop that threatened consume her entirely.

And there was still more, things she didn't entirely understand, complexities and nuances that were beyond her right now without studying them, whispers of things she could touch and see _beyond_ which she _didn't have time for._

Her Light barrier blinked back into reality, letting both her and Sedia taking gasping breaths, Sedia likely from the shock of being back in control of her faculties, and Weaver from once more carving out and locking away a part of _herself_.

"That was… very, discomforting. I can see why you would want to control such an ability if permanent suppression is not an option?" Sedia said.

"It's not," Weaver replied shortly, to which the Techeun nodded slowly in acceptance.

"My sisters and I will analyze the data and contact you once we have designed the proper configuration for what will be required," she said.

"If that's all then?" Weaver said.

"That will be all for today. Queen's blessing be upon you, Blade," Sedia replied.

Weaver stood. "Thank you. And you as well."

Sedia tilted her head in acknowledgement, before turning back to her datapad, leaving Weaver to exit the room and head back to the surface.

"Well that wasn't uncomfortable or anything."

Kali materialized next to her, floating freely. "Tech witches are weird."

Weaver just looked at her Ghost with a raised eyebrow, to which Kali rolled her optic. "You know what I mean."

"That honestly wasn't too bad. It could have been worse. Like constantly speaking in cryptic riddles. I knew this one person who refused to speak any other way. Glaistig Uaine was _seriously_ messed up. At least the Techeuns are straightforward enough."

"Just when I think your old life can't get any weirder, you have to prove me wrong." Kali's shell rippled. "But whatever. That doesn't matter. Now come on! It's time to go find some gun parts! We've got a shooty laser to finish!"

* * *

 **A/N:** Kali continues to remain Best Ghost.

This _is_ a little rough, also my first chapter post in god-knows-how-long, so feedback is _greatly_ appreciated (thought that's not exactly different than normal, I suppose.)


End file.
